Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Summer 2010

Survey of monitoring and management for conservation of rare plants, Roadside restoration techniques in Joshua Tree NP, and an update on renewable energy developments in the Southwestern desert

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Winter 2010

Native species interactions with red brome (Bromus rubens), undergraduate and graduate programs at UNLV, what’s growing in the greenhouse

Evaluating efficacy of restoration techniques, Keys View Road reconstruction, Joshua Tree National Park, California, U.S.A

Keys View Road in Joshua Tree National Park (JOTR) was recently repaved, resulting in a buffer of vegetation and soil disturbance along the road corridor. In order to mitigate the effects of the repaving, JOTR designed an experimental framework to test various revegetation strategies. They outplanted salvaged and nursery grown native plant species in conjunction with vertical mulch in a fully crossed design (outplanting only, vertical mulch only, outplanting + vertical mulch, bare ground) to examine if any of the treatments most efficiently establish native plant communities

Heat and smoke effects on red brome soil seed banks

Management of exotic plants that are annuals entails understanding and managing their soil seed banks. We completed a study of the influences of heat and liquid smoke on red brome (Bromus rubens) soil seed banks collected from Red Rock Canyon in southern Nevada as part of a collaborative fire effects monitoring effort with Bureau of Land Management - Las Vegas. We collected the samples from the 2005 Loop Fire, where we observed in a monitoring field study that exotic grasses such as red brome were relatively sparse in the first 2-3 years (which were during a dry period) following the fire. Based on these observations, we were interested in assessing whether the direct exposure to heat and smoke during fire may influence brome’s seed banks

Trying to beat the brome: Understanding establishment thresholds and choosing competitive native species at Parashant National Monument

Desert fires fueled by exotic grasses like the omnipresent red brome (Bromus rubens) can be intense and cause widespread mortality of native vegetation. Native desert scrub communities such as those dominated by blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima) do not readily reestablish after fire (Abella 2009) and may even become more abundant in the post-burn landscape initiating a fire cycle that occurs at a greater frequency than the recovery time of the long-lived desert perennial community

Vegetation Re-Establishment of Mojave Desert Plant Communities After 2005-2006 Wildland Fires

Examine biotic and abiotic patterns that determine vegetative regrowth after wildfires to better inform land managers about what to expect after fires and how to manage restoration efforts

Plant community response to fire: A chronosequence study

Fires are becoming more prevalent events across the landscape in the southwestern US. Over the next several decades the already arid southwest is predicted to become warmer and drier, with longer summers, and an increase of “extreme” weather events such as lightening inducing thunderstorms. While the “hotter and drier” forecast may indicate less abundant plant life, and thus less available biomass for fuel, exotic invasive plant species are becoming more dominant across the landscape with increases in human travel and commerce. Exotic species (particularly many of the invasive grasses) are adding fuel for the fires to burn when the annuals are left as skeletons at the end of summer

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Summer 2009

BLM and wildfire protection in the Mojave, studies of the sticky ringstem flowering phenology in Lake Mead NRA, restoration work within gypsum soils, post-fire response synthesis for Mojave and Sonoran desert

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Winter 2008

Mojave Desert collaborative projects, fire history in Spring Mountains, Northshore Road rehabilitation, wildfires and invasive plants in American deserts conference, weed sentry survey

Seeding Effectiveness for Eight Mojave Desert Perennials After a 2005 Wildfire

To assess BLM seeding effectiveness in a mid-elevation burn where pre-burn plant communities were dominated by blackbrush, Joshua trees, and creosote