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"Briske, David D."
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Rangeland systems : processes, management and challenges
\"This book provides an unprecedented synthesis of the current status of scientific and management knowledge regarding global rangelands and the major challenges that confront them. It has been organized around three major themes. The first summarizes the conceptual advances that have occurred in the rangeland profession. The second addresses the implications of these conceptual advances to management and policy. The third assesses several major challenges confronting global rangelands in the 21st century. This book will compliment applied range management textbooks by describing the conceptual foundation on which the rangeland profession is based. It has been written to be accessible to a broad audience, including ecosystem managers, educators, students and policy makers. The content is founded on the collective experience, knowledge and commitment of 80 authors who have worked in rangelands throughout the world. Their collective contributions indicate that a more comprehensive framework is necessary to address the complex challenges confronting global rangelands. Rangelands represent adaptive social-ecological systems, in which societal values, organizations and capacities are of equal importance to, and interact with, those of ecological processes. A more comprehensive framework for rangeland systems may enable management agencies, and educational, research and policy making organizations to more effectively assess complex problems and develop appropriate solutions.\"--Publisher description.
Book
Complexity fosters learning in collaborative adaptive management
Learning is recognized as central to collaborative adaptive management (CAM), yet few longitudinal studies examine how learning occurs in CAM or apply the science of learning to interpret this process. We present an analysis of decision-making processes within the collaborative adaptive rangeland management (CARM) experiment, in which 11 stakeholders use a structured CAM process to make decisions about livestock grazing and vegetation management for beef, vegetation, and wildlife objectives. We analyzed four years of meeting transcripts, stakeholder communications, and biophysical monitoring data to ask what facilitated and challenged stakeholder decision making, how challenges affected stakeholder learning, and whether CARM met theorized criteria for effective CAM. Despite thorough monitoring and natural resource agency commitment to implementing collaborative decisions, CARM participants encountered multiple decision-making challenges born of ecological and social complexity. CARM was effective in achieving several of its management objectives, including reduced ecological uncertainty, knowledge coproduction, and multiple-loop social learning. CARM revealed limitations of the idealized CAM cycle and challenged conceptions of adaptive management that separate reduction of scientific uncertainty from participatory and management dimensions. We present a revised, empirically grounded CAM framework that depicts CAM as a spiral rather than a circle, where feedback loops between monitoring data and management decisions are never fully closed. Instead, complexities including time-lags, trade-offs, path-dependency, and tensions among stakeholders' differing types of knowledge and social worlds both constrain decision making and foster learning by creating disorienting dilemmas that challenge participants' pre-existing mental models and relationships. Based on these findings, we share recommendations for accelerating learning in CAM processes.
Journal Article
Professional ecological knowledge
Successful natural resource management is dependent on effective knowledge exchange and utilization. Local/traditional/indigenous knowledge derived from place-based experience and scientific knowledge generated by systematic inquiry are the most commonly recognized knowledge domains. However, we propose that many natural resource decisions are not based on local or scientific knowledge, but rather on a little recognized domain that we term professional ecological knowledge (PEK). Professional ecological knowledge is founded upon codification of broad ecological principles, but not necessarily scientific evidence, to legitimize agency programs, support operational efficiency, and encourage user compliance. However, in spite of these benefits, PEK may reduce program effectiveness by inhibiting the exchange of local and scientific knowledge and minimizing the development of evidence-based conservation. We describe what we consider to be common facets of PEK through case studies examining the sources of knowledge utilized by forestry agencies in India and by rangeland conservation programs of the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service. Three propositions are presented regarding the origins and continued existence of PEK: (1) minimal information feedbacks regarding the efficacy of agency programs contributes to development of PEK; (2) a narrow scientific agenda and a perception that most scientific knowledge is not relevant to management decisions encourages a divide between scientists and managers; and (3) political interests often benefit from existing applications of PEK. By calling attention to the existence of PEK as a distinctive knowledge domain, we aim to encourage more explicit and critical consideration of the origins of knowledge used in environmental decision making. Explicit recognition of PEK may provide greater understanding of the dynamics of knowledge exchange and decision making in natural resource management.
Journal Article
Potential natural vegetation and NPP responses to future climates in the U.S. Great Plains
Asymmetric climate projections throughout the U.S. Great Plains may intensify the existing latitudinal temperature gradient and magnify the longitudinal precipitation gradient. These potential changes present a unique challenge to understanding the ecological consequences of future climates in the region. Here we investigate how climate change may affect the spatio‐temporal patterns of potential natural vegetation types (PVT) and net primary production (NPP) throughout the 21st century with the global dynamic vegetation model MC2. Simulations were driven by projected climate variables from five global climate models under representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5. MC2 simulated C3 and C4 grassland, shrubland, forest, and woodland (shrubland + forest) PVTs, and total NPP for each PVT. The largest increases in woodland and grassland NPP occurred in the Northern Plains (17.5% and 4.7%), followed by the Central Plains (10.6% and 0.0%), while NPP in the Southern Plains remained unchanged compared to historic means (1981–2010). A shift from grassland to woodland in the Northern and Central Plains further affected regional NPP; regional woodland NPP increased 72% and 26% in the Northern and Central Plains, respectively, while regional grassland NPP decreased 18% and 12%, respectively. The most pronounced shift in PVT was associated with increasing, rather than decreasing, mean annual precipitation in the Northern Plains where grassland contracted in response to westward expansion of woodland. C3 grassland was gradually replaced by C4 grassland in the Northern Plains by 2080, and only a trace remained at centuries end. C3 grassland decreased to a trace amount ca. 2060 in the Central Plains, while C4 grassland increased slightly. The relative stability of PVTs in the Southern Plains suggests that species and functional trait diversity may buffer grassland responses to future climates by providing the capacity for species reordering. The asymmetric response of simulated vegetation and NPP to 21st century climate change suggests that the provision of ecosystem services—beef cattle production, carbon sequestration, and grassland bird habitat—will be modified in distinct ways along a latitudinal gradient throughout the Great Plains.
Journal Article
Grazing and ecosystem carbon storage in the North American Great Plains
Isotopic signatures of 13C were used to quantify the relative contributions of C3 and C4 plants to whole-ecosystem C storage (soil+plant) in grazed and ungrazed sites at three distinct locations (short-, mid- and tallgrass communities) along an east-west environmental gradient in the North American Great Plains. Functional group composition of plant communities, the source and magnitude of carbon inputs, and total ecosystem carbon storage displayed inconsistent responses to long-term livestock grazing along this gradient. C4 plants [primarily Bouteloua gracilis (H.B.K.) Lag ex Steud.] dominated the long-term grazed site in the shortgrass community, whereas the ungrazed site was co-dominated by C3 and C4 species; functional group composition did not differ between grazed and ungrazed sites in the mid- and tallgrass communities. Above-ground biomass was lower, but the relative proportion of fine root biomass was greater, in grazed compared to ungrazed sites at all three locations. The grazed site of the shortgrass community had 24% more whole-ecosystem carbon storage compared to the ungrazed site (4022 vs. 3236 g C m-2). In contrast, grazed sites at the mid- and tallgrass communities had slightly lower (8%) whole-ecosystem carbon storage compared to ungrazed sites (midgrass: 7970 vs. 8683 g C m-2; tallgrass: 8273 vs. 8997 g C m-2). Differential responses between the shortgrass and the mid- and tallgrass communities with respect to grazing and whole-ecosystem carbon storage are likely a result of: (1) maintenance of larger soil organic carbon (SOC) pools in the mid- and tallgrass communities (7476-8280 g C m-2) than the shortgrass community (2517-3307 g C m-2) that could potentially buffer ecosystem carbon fluxes, (2) lower root carbon/soil carbon ratios in the mid- and tallgrass communities (0.06-0.10) compared to the shortgrass community (0.20-0.27) suggesting that variation in root organic matter inputs would have relatively smaller effects on the size of the SOC pool, and (3) the absence of grazing-induced variation in the relative proportion of C3 and C4 functional groups in the mid- and tallgrass communities. We hypothesize that the magnitude and proportion of fine root mass within the upper soil profile is a principal driver mediating the effect of community composition on the biogeochemistry of these grassland ecosystems.
Journal Article
Opening learning spaces to create actionable knowledge for conservation
The limited application of science to environmental management has been termed the “science‐management knowledge gap.” This gap is widely assumed to be a consequence of inefficient knowledge transfer from science to application. However, this metaphor misrepresents knowledge as a “thing” that can be readily exchanged in complex systems, rather than a “process of relating” that involves negotiation and dialogue among stakeholders. We advocate for development of a more explicit alternative model of knowledge creation founded on Nonaka's Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation, which emphasizes how knowledge is converted into more usable forms through socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization within “learning spaces.” Effective learning spaces require sufficient trust to enable open, honest, and receptive interactions among stakeholders. We advocate that greater emphasis on knowledge conversions within effectively designed learning spaces will accelerate development of actionable knowledge beyond that of existing models.
Journal Article
Translational Science Partnerships: Key to Environmental Stewardship
[...]scientific knowledge often lacks sufficient context for successful application to ecosystem management and policy, because these actions occur within complex adaptive systems characterized by ecological, economic, and cultural components that collectively determine system responses and management outcomes. [...]in this assessment, most management programs, regardless of their ecological effectiveness, were determined to be cost ineffective when they were evaluated in the context of the quantified market value of the commodities originating from management actions.
Journal Article
Vulnerability assessment of the multi‐sector North American bison Bison bison management system to climate change
Bison Bison bison are a keystone of a conservation system, but that system is vulnerable to the effects of a changing climate projected to alter land use through the 21st century. The current bison population of North America is approximately 400,000 animals and is maintained by a self‐assembled bison management system (BMS) of various stakeholders focused on bison conservation and production. The BMS is comprised of public, for‐profit private, Tribal and not‐for‐profit non‐governmental organization (NGO) sectors, with complementary values, attitudes and practices that contribute to a robust conservation footprint for the species. Currently, the majority of grasslands (90%) and bison (85%) are privately owned which justifies the need for robust private land conservation strategies to maintain this iconic species and its grassland habitats. We assessed vulnerability of the BMS to 21st century consequences of climate change with a vulnerability scoping diagram that emphasizes exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, as well as environmental values, attitudes and practices. We surveyed 132 bison managers within both the private and public/NGO sectors. Respondents were predominantly educated white males located in the northern and central mixed grass prairies who manage bison herds of, on average, 51–100 animals. Overall, the BMS is moderately vulnerable to climate change. While the public/NGO and private sectors differ in adaptive capacity, specifically in measures of information exchange, external revenue, use of management plans and access to grazing leases, the sectors act as partners for exchanging bison and rely on sustained interchange of bison; dimensions of exposure and sensitivity appear similar between public/NGO and private sectors. The complementary, shared environmental values and attitudes of the private and public/NGO sectors shape the foundation for enhanced collaboration among the multi‐sector BMS. But it is the sharing of diverse practices and respective consequences that will lead the BMS to discover credible, scalable adaptive solutions to climate change. This may lead to the bison community to decide whether to form a ‘bison coalition’ to seek solutions to adapt to climate change. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Journal Article
Vulnerability of Southern Plains agriculture to climate change
Projections of greater interannual and intrannual climate variability, including increasing temperatures, longer and more intense drought periods, and more extreme precipitation events, present growing challenges for agricultural production in the Southern Plains of the USA. We assess agricultural vulnerabilities within this region to support identification and development of adaptation strategies at regional to local scales, where many management decisions are made. Exposure to the synergistic effects of warming, such as fewer and more intense precipitation events and greater overall weather variability, will uniquely affect rain-fed and irrigated cropping, high-value specialty crops, extensive and intensive livestock production, and forestry. Although the sensitivities of various agricultural sectors to climatic stressors can be difficult to identify at regional scales, we summarize that crops irrigated from the Ogallala aquifer possess a high sensitivity; rangeland beef cattle production a low sensitivity; and rain-fed crops, forestry, and specialty crops intermediate sensitivities. Numerous adaptation strategies have been identified, including drought contingency planning, increased soil health, improved forecasts and associated decision support tools, and implementation of policies and financial instruments for risk management. However, the extent to which these strategies are adopted is variable and influenced by both biophysical and socioeconomic considerations. Inadequate local- and regional-scale climate risk and resilience information suggests that climate vulnerability research and climate adaptation approaches need to include bottom-up approaches such as learning networks and peer-to-peer communication.
Journal Article
Isoprene emission from terrestrial ecosystems in response to global change: minding the gap between models and observations
Coupled surface-atmosphere models are being used with increased frequency to make predictions of tropospheric chemistry on a 'future' earth characterized by a warmer climate and elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration. One of the key inputs to these models is the emission of isoprene from forest ecosystems. Most models in current use rely on a scheme by which global change is coupled to changes in terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP) which, in turn, is coupled to changes in the magnitude of isoprene emissions. In this study, we conducted measurements of isoprene emissions at three prominent global change experiments in the United States. Our results showed that growth in an atmosphere of elevated CO2 inhibited the emission of isoprene at levels that completely compensate for possible increases in emission due to increases in aboveground NPP. Exposure to a prolonged drought caused leaves to increase their isoprene emissions despite reductions in photosynthesis, and presumably NPP. Thus, the current generation of models intended to predict the response of isoprene emission to future global change probably contain large errors. A framework is offered as a foundation for constructing new isoprene emission models based on the responses of leaf biochemistry to future climate change and elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
Journal Article