A sagebrush conservation design to proactively restore America’s sagebrush biome

Authors: DOHERTY, KEVIN - Us Fish And Wildlife Service; THEOBALD, DAVID - Conservation Planning Technology; BRADFORD, JOHN - Us Geological Survey (USGS); WIECHMAN, LIEF - Us Geological Survey (USGS); BEDROSIAN, GEOFFREY - Us Fish And Wildlife Service; Boyd, Chad; CAHILL, MATTHEW - The Nature Conservancy; COATES, PETER - Us Geological Survey (USGS); CREUTZBURG, MEGAN - Oregon State University; CRIST, MICHELE - Bureau Of Land Management; FINN, SEAN - Us Fish And Wildlife Service; KUMAR, ALEXANDER - Us Fish And Wildlife Service; LITTLEFIELD, CAITLIN - Conservation Science Partners; MAESTAS, JEREMY - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS, USDA); PRENTICE, KAREN - Bureau Of Land Management; PROCHAZKA, BRIAN - Us Geological Survey (USGS); REMINGTON, THOMAS - Western Association Of Fish And Wildlife Agencies; SPARKLIN, WILLIAM - Us Fish And Wildlife Service; TULL, JOHN - Us Fish And Wildlife Service; WURTZEBACK, ZACHARY - Center For Large Landscape Conservation; ZELLER, KATHERINE - Us Forest Service (FS)

Submitted to: United States Geological Survey Technical Report
Publication Type: Government Publication
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/7/2022
Publication Date: 9/22/2022
Citation: Doherty, K., Theobald, D.M., Bradford, J.B., Wiechman, L.A., Bedrosian, G., Boyd, C.S., Cahill, M., Coates, P.S., Creutzburg, M.K., Crist, M.R., Finn, S.P., Kumar, A.V., Littlefield, C.E., Maestas, J.D., Prentice, K.L., Prochazka, B.G., Remington, T.E., Sparklin, W.D., Tull, J.C., Wurtzeback, Z., Zeller, K.A. 2022. A sagebrush conservation design to proactively restore America’s sagebrush biome. United States Geological Survey Technical Report. ofr20221081. https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20221081.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20221081

Interpretive Summary: The sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) biome, its wildlife, and the services and benefits it provides people and local communities are threatened from a growing list of ecosystem problems including invasive annual plants, altered fire regimes, and conifer expansion, along with human disturbance in many forms. To help conservation partners in the sagebrush biome incorporate a holistic, ecosystem and threat-based management approach, we leveraged recent advancements in remotely-sensed landcover products to develop spatially and temporally explicit maps of sagebrush rangeland condition and landscape threats, with the overarching goal of providing a common and actionable basis for understanding the state of sagebrush rangelands through time across the entire biome. Our analyses indicated that intact sagebrush habitats are decreasing at a rate of 1.3 million acres per year and that approximately 75% of that loss is associated with ecosystem problems such as invasive annual grasses and wildfire (i.e., as opposed to direct human impacts), and the magnitude of these losses suggests that a previously unrealized level of conservation support and impact will be needed to reverse current trends. Complex ecosystem problems impact a diverse suite of land uses, values, and ecosystem services ranging from wildlife habitat to livestock forage and carbon sequestration, and our framework is critical to informing strategic allocation of conservation effort and resources in support of the adaptive and active management needed to ameliorate these threats.

Technical Abstract: The sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) biome, its wildlife, and the services and benefits it provides people and local communities are threatened from a growing list of ecosystem problems including invasive annual plants, altered fire regimes, and conifer expansion, along with human disturbance in many forms. To help conservation partners in the sagebrush biome incorporate a holistic, ecosystem and threat-based management approach, we leveraged recent advancements in remotely-sensed landcover products to develop spatially and temporally explicit maps of sagebrush rangeland condition and landscape threats, with the overarching goal of providing a common and actionable basis for understanding the state of sagebrush rangelands through time across the entire biome. Our analyses indicated that intact sagebrush habitats are decreasing at a rate of 1.3 million acres per year and that approximately 75% of that loss is associated with ecosystem problems such as invasive annual grasses and wildfire (i.e., as opposed to direct human impacts), and the magnitude of these losses suggests that a previously unrealized level of conservation support and impact will be needed to reverse current trends. Complex ecosystem problems impact a diverse suite of land uses, values, and ecosystem services ranging from wildlife habitat to livestock forage and carbon sequestration, and our framework is critical to informing strategic allocation of conservation effort and resources in support of the adaptive and active management needed to ameliorate these threats.