Aim Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ), a shrub-steppe obligate species of western North America, currently occupies only half its historical range. Here we examine how broad-scale, long-term trends in landscape condition have affected range contraction. Location Sagebrush biome of the western USA. Methods Logistic regression was used to assess persistence and extirpation of grea...

Free-roaming equids (horses [Equus caballus] and burros [E. asinus]) in the United States were introduced to North America at the end of the 15th century, and have unique management status among ungulates. Legislation demands that these animals are neither hunted nor actively managed with fences and rotation among pastures, but instead constitute an integral part of the natural system of the pu...

When plants receive volatiles from a damaged plant, the receivers become more resistant to herbivory. This phenomenon has been reported in many plant species and called plant-plant communication. Lab experiments have suggested that several compounds may be functioning as airborne signals. The objective of this study is to identify potential airborne signals used in communication between sagebru...

Small mammal communities living in sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) may be sensitive to habitat isolation and invasion by exotic grass species. Yet there have been no spatially explicit models to improve our understanding of landscape-scale factors determining small mammal occurrence or abundance. We live-trapped small mammals at 186 locations in the Wyoming Basin Ecoregional Assessment area to devel...

Herbivory by both grazing and browsing ungulates shapes the structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, and both types of herbivory have been implicated in major ecosystem state changes. Despite the ecological consequences of differences in diets and feeding habits among herbivores, studies that experimentally distinguish effects of grazing from spatially co-occurring, but te...

Transport of mass and energy between and within soils, canopies, and the atmosphere is an area of increasing interest in hydrology and meteorology. On arid and semiarid rangelands, evapotranspiration (ET) can account for over 90% of the precipitation, making accurate knowledge of the surface energy balance particularly critical. Recent advances in measurement and modeling have made the accurate...

We investigated the movements and selection of settlement sites of translocated pygmy rabbits (Brachylagus idahoensis) in southeastern Oregon from June to December 2008. We captured, radio tagged, and translocated 59 pygmy rabbits across big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp.) habitat with 3 categories of landscape fragmentation. We used radio telemetry to track the movements and document the...

As environmental stress increases positive (facilitative) plant interactions often predominate. Plant-plant associations (or lack thereof) can indicate whether certain plant species favor particular types of microsites (e.g., shrub canopies or plant-free interspaces) and can provide valuable insights into whether "nurse plants" will contribute to seeding or planting success during ecological re...

Conifer control in sagebrush steppe of the western United States causes various levels of site disturbance influencing vegetation recovery and resource availability. The data set presented in this article include growing season availability of soil micronutrients and levels of total soil carbon, organic matter, and N spanning a six year period following western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis s...

The herbicide imazapic is registered for use on rangelands and provides effective short-term control of certain invasive annual grasses. However, details about optimal application rates for downy brome and susceptibility of simultaneously seeded species are lacking. Thus, we investigated downy brome and seeded species responses to variable rates of imazapic (0, 35, 70, 105, and 140 g ai/ha) in ...