“Community assembly history alters relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions during restoration” #grasslands @catano_chris @lars_brudvig @DrAnnaFunk

“Community assembly history alters relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions during restoration”

This open access article was published online on October 31, 2022 in the journal Ecology. Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3910)

Abstract

Relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning depend on the processes structuring community assembly. However, predicting biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships based on community assembly remains challenging because assembly outcomes are often contingent on history and the consequences of history for ecosystem functions are poorly understood. In a grassland restoration experiment, we isolated the role of history for the relationships between plant biodiversity and multiple ecosystem functions by initiating assembly in three different years, while controlling for all other aspects of community assembly.

We found that two aspects of assembly history — establishment year and succession — altered species and trait community trajectories, which in turn altered net primary productivity, decomposition rates, and floral resources. Moreover, history altered biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships (which ranged from positive to negative), both within and across functions, by modifying the causal pathways linking species identity, traits, diversity, and ecosystem functions. Our results show that the interplay of deterministic succession and environmental stochasticity during establishment mediate historical contingencies that cause variation in biodiversity and ecosystem functions, even under otherwise identical assembly conditions.

An explicit attention to history is needed to understand why biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships vary in natural ecosystems: a critical question at the intersection of fundamental theory and applications to environmental change biology and ecosystem restoration.

Keywords: alternative states; colonization; decomposition; floral resources; functional traits; historical contingency; primary productivity; seed dispersal; stochasticity; succession; tallgrass prairie; year effects

Citation

Catano, Christopher P., Anna M. Groves, and Lars A. Brudvig. "Community assembly history alters relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions during restoration." Ecology: e3910.

"Fire and Insect Interactions in North American Forests" - #pollinators #rxfire #savanna #woodland @usfs_psw @usfs_srs @usfs_rmrs

"Fire and Insect Interactions in North American Forests"

This review article was published Aug. 19, 2022, in Current Forestry Reports. Access the article for free from the USDA Forest Service’s Treesearch database (https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/64856)

Abstract

Purpose of Review
Fire and insects are major disturbances in North American forests. We reviewed literature on the effects of fire on bark beetles, defoliators, and pollinators, as well as on the effects of bark beetle and defoliator epidemics on fuels and wildfires.

Recent Findings
Fire has direct and indirect effects on insects, but our understanding of these effects is confounded by several factors identified in this review. Direct effects are expressed through insect mortality due to exposure to fire, with few studies published on this topic. Indirect effects are expressed through changes in insect hosts and forest conditions, with bark beetle responses to fire-injured trees following prescribed fires and low-severity wildfires being the most studied. Although fire effects on pollinators are an emerging field of research, it is clear that fire can benefit pollinators by creating more open forest conditions, which, in turn, enhance floral resource availability. Bark beetle and defoliator epidemics can exert large effects on fuels, but their effects on wildfires are mixed. Differences in the severity, extent, and timing of epidemics, fire regimes, fire weather, topography, and the metrics and models used to assess wildfires, among other factors, confound our understanding of the effects of bark beetle and defoliator epidemics on wildfires.

Summary
Fire has both positive and negative effects on insects. Bark beetle and defoliator epidemics have positive and negative effects on wildfires. Additional study of these relationships is warranted given the effects of climate change on forests and forest disturbances, recent declines in some pollinator species in North America, and interests in restoring fire-adapted forest ecosystems.

Keywords: Bark beetles; Defoliators; Pollinators; Prescribed fire; Tree mortality; Wildfire;

Citation

Fettig, Christopher J., Justin B. Runyon, Crystal S. Homicz, Patrick James, and Michael D. Ulyshen. "Fire and Insect Interactions in North American Forests." Current Forestry Reports (2022): 1-16.

“Within-Year Effects of Prescribed Fire on Bumble Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and Floral Resources” #rxfire #bees #grassland @grattonlab

“Within-Year Effects of Prescribed Fire on Bumble Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and Floral Resources”

This open access article was published in January 2022 in the Journal of Insect Science.
Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/ieab107)

Abstract

Despite the importance of bumble bees (genus Bombus Latreille) for their services to natural and agricultural environments, we know little about the relationship between grassland management practices and bumble bee conservation. Prescribed fire is a common grassland maintenance tool, including in areas where endangered and threatened bumble bees are present. Thus, knowledge of the effects of prescribed fire on bumble bees is essential for designing management schemes that protect and bolster their populations.

Using nonlethal surveys to record bumble bee species richness, abundance, and community composition, we evaluated the effects of spring controlled burns on summer bumble bee gynes and workers across five sites in southern Wisconsin. In addition, we explored the effects of fire on floral resources by measuring floral genus richness, abundance, ground cover, and proportion of transects containing blooming flowers in adjacent burned and unburned parcels.

Prescribed fire had no measurable effects on bumble bee gyne or worker community composition, species richness, or abundance. However, consistent with previous studies prescribed fire increased floral genus richness and ground cover. The disconnect between bumble bee and floral responses to fire highlights some opportunities for improving our understanding of fire’s effects on bumble bee diapause, nest site choice, and foraging.

Keywords: bumble bees; fire; tallgrass prairie; grassland

Citation

Tai, T. M., A. Kaldor, D. Urbina, and C. Gratton. "Within-Year Effects of Prescribed Fire on Bumble Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) and Floral Resources." Journal of Insect Science 22, no. 1 (2022): 7.

“Variation in prescribed fire and bison grazing supports multiple bee nesting groups in tallgrass prairie” #rxfire #grazing #pollinators #bees @beepunstings @larval_yeti @zachportman

“Variation in prescribed fire and bison grazing supports multiple bee nesting groups in tallgrass prairie”

This article was published July 30, 2021 in the journal Restoration Ecology.

Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13507)

Abstract

Fire and grazing are historic ecosystem drivers of tallgrass prairie and both are used for restoration management today. The effects of these drivers on animal taxa are still incompletely resolved, especially for wild bees, a growing conservation and restoration priority. Fire and grazing could affect wild bee communities through structural changes to nest site availability via changes to soil conditions, vegetative cover, and availability of plant stems.

Here, we sought to determine how different bee nesting groups are affected by the combination of fire and bison grazing management strategies. We grouped bee species by nesting substrate (ground, stem/hole, large cavity) because we expect the availability of these substrates to vary with the application of prescribed fire and grazing. We collected bees in restored and remnant high-quality tallgrass prairie and analyzed whether the proportion of each nesting group within the total bee community was predicted by fire and/or grazing.

Ground-nesting bees reached their greatest proportion in bee communities immediately after prescribed fire, but declined proportionally over time since the last burn. Stem-/hole-nesting bees reached their highest proportion in the bee community with infrequent fire (6-year interval) and differed in their response to fire depending on the presence/absence of bison. Sampling year affected bee nesting groups and we found that nesting groups did not change in concert (i.e. different nesting groups had different good and bad years from each other).

Our results show that spatiotemporal variation of prescribed fire and bison grazing is essential for conservation of multiple bee nesting groups.

Keywords: bees; bison; functional traits; nesting; pollinator; restoration; tallgrass prairie

Citation

Bruninga‐Socolar, Bethanne, Sean R. Griffin, Zachary M. Portman, and Jason Gibbs. "Variation in prescribed fire and bison grazing supports multiple bee nesting groups in tallgrass prairie." Restoration Ecology 30, no. 3 (2022): e13507.

Can restoration of fire‐dependent ecosystems reduce ticks and tick‐borne disease prevalence in the eastern United States? @USFS_NRS @NorthAtlFireSci #rxfire

"Can restoration of fire‐dependent ecosystems reduce ticks and tick‐borne disease prevalence in the eastern United States?"

This review article was published April 14, 2022, in the journal Ecological Applications.
Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2637). This article can also be accessed for free through the USDA Treesearch database - https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/65343

Abstract

Over the past century, fire suppression has facilitated broad ecological changes in the composition, structure, and function of fire-dependent landscapes throughout the eastern US, which are in decline. These changes have likely contributed mechanistically to the enhancement of habitat conditions that favor pathogencarrying tick species, key wildlife hosts of ticks, and interactions that have fostered pathogen transmission among them and to humans.

While the long running paradigm for limiting human exposure to tick-borne diseases focuses responsibility on individual prevention, the continued expansion of medically important tick populations, increased incidence of tick-borne disease in humans, and emergence of novel tick-borne diseases highlights the need for additional approaches to stem this public health challenge.

Another approach that has the potential to be a cost-effective and widely applied but that remains largely overlooked is the use of prescribed fire to ecologically restore degraded landscapes that favor ticks and pathogen transmission. We examine the ecological role of fire and its effects on ticks within the eastern United States, especially examining the life cycles of forest-dwelling ticks, shifts in regional-scale fire use over the past century, and the concept that frequent fire may have helped moderate tick populations and pathogen transmission prior to the so-called fire-suppression era that has characterized the past century.

We explore mechanisms of how fire and ecological restoration can reduce ticks, the potential for incorporating the mechanisms into the broader strategy for managing ticks, and the challenges, limitations, and research needs of prescribed burning for tick reduction.

Keywords: disturbances; forest structure; mesophication; microclimate; prescribed fire; ticks

Citation

Gallagher, Michael R., Jesse K. Kreye, Erika T. Machtinger, Alexis Everland, Nathaniel Schmidt, and Nicholas S. Skowronski. "Can restoration of fire‐dependent ecosystems reduce ticks and tick‐borne disease prevalence in the eastern United States? " Ecological Applications (2022): e2637.

Restoring the fire–grazing interaction promotes tree–grass coexistence by controlling woody encroachment #rxfire #grasslands #grazing

“Restoring the fire–grazing interaction promotes tree–grass coexistence by controlling woody encroachment”

This open access article was published online February 2020 in the journal Ecosphere. Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2993

Abstract

Woody encroachment can convert grasslands and savannas to shrublands and woodlands, so understanding the processes which regulate woody encroachment is necessary to conserve or restore these ecosystems. We hypothesized that recreating the fire–grazing interaction would limit woody encroachment because focal grazing increases fuel accumulation on unburned areas and increases browsing on emergent woody plants in burned areas. This study was conducted in the Grand River Grasslands of Iowa and Missouri (USA) on 11 sites (15.4–35.0 ha). Each site was assigned to one treatment: patch-burn-graze (n = 4), with spatially discrete prescribed fires and free access by cattle (the fire–grazing interaction); graze-and-burn (n = 4), with free access by cattle and one burn of the entire site every 3 yr; or burn-only (n = 3), with one site-wide burn every 3–5 yr and no grazing. The burn-only treatment increased woody encroachment fourfold compared to the graze-and-burn and patch-burn-graze treatments (130.2, standard error [SE] = 16.0; 20.9, SE = 12.0; and 46.3, SE = 10.8; plants/200 m2). The patch-burn-graze treatment had 2–3 cm more accumulated fuel and woody plants which were 12% shorter, on average, than the other treatments (comparing eight common species). The movement of large herbivores also appeared to decrease the frequency of woody species which spread vegetatively. Our work illustrates how the fire–grazing interaction may control woody encroachment and shows that cattle substitute, at least partially, for endemic large herbivores.

Keywords: cattle; environmental filtering; fire–grazing interaction; fire-trap; herbivory; patch-burn grazing; taxon substitution; tree–grass coexistence; woody encroachment

Citation

Capozzelli, Jane F., James R. Miller, Diane M. Debinski, and Walter H. Schacht. "Restoring the fire–grazing interaction promotes tree–grass coexistence by controlling woody encroachment." Ecosphere 11, no. 2 (2020): e02993.

Managing invasive plants on Great Plains grasslands: A discussion of current challenges #capacity #rxfire

“Managing invasive plants on Great Plains grasslands: A discussion of current challenges”

This article was originally published in the 2021 issue of Rangeland Ecology and Management.

Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2020.04.003

Abstract

The Great Plains of North America encompass approximately 1,300,000 km2 of land from Texas to Saskatchewan. The integrity of these lands is under continual assault by long-established and newly-arrived invasive plant species, which can threaten native species and diminish land values and ecological goods and services by degrading desired grassland resources. The Great Plains are a mixture of privately and publicly owned lands, which leads to a patchwork of varying management goals and strategies for controlling invasive plants. Continually updated knowledge is required for efficient and effective management of threats posed by changing environments and invasive plants. Here we discuss current challenges, contemporary management strategies, and management tools and their integration, in hopes of presenting a knowledge resource for new and experienced land managers and others involved in making decisions regarding invasive plant management in the Great Plains.

Keywords: invasive species; prescribed fire; wildfire; integrated weed management; herbicide; grazing

Citation

Gaskin, John F., Erin Espeland, Casey D. Johnson, Diane L. Larson, Jane M. Mangold, Rachel A. McGee, Chuck Milner, Amy Symstad, et al. "Managing invasive plants on Great Plains grasslands: A discussion of current challenges." Rangeland Ecology & Management 78 (2021): 235-249.

“Management opportunities and research priorities for Great Plains grasslands” @gpfirescience @usfs_rmrs #rxfire #grasslands

“Management opportunities and research priorities for Great Plains grasslands”

Access the article through the permanent web address at the US Forest Service Treesearch database (DOI) - https://doi.org/10.2737/RMRS-GTR-398

This report is a digest of seven working sessions at the 2018 Great Plains Grassland Summit, including a session on wildfire and prescribed fire. Presentations and posters from the summit are also available online - https://westernforestry.org/past-conferences/great-plains-grassland-summit-challenges-and-opportunities-from-north-to-south

Abstract

The Great Plains Grassland Summit: Challenges and Opportunities from North to South was held April 10-11, 2018 in Denver, Colorado to provide syntheses of information about key grassland topics of interest in the Great Plains; networking and learning channels for managers, researchers, and stakeholders; and working sessions for sharing ideas about challenges and future research and management opportunities. The summit was convened to better understand stressors and resource demands throughout the Great Plains and how to manage them, and to discuss methods for improved collaboration among natural resource managers, scientists, and stakeholders.

Over 200 stakeholders, who collectively were affiliated with all of the Great Plains States, attended the summit. Attendees included university researchers, government scientists, and individuals affiliated with Federal and State agencies, tribes, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations. Plenary speakers provided syntheses of current knowledge on key topics to help stage working sessions on working lands, native wildlife and biological diversity, native plants and pollinators, invasive species, wildland and prescribed fire, energy development, and weather, water, and climate. The summit steering committee designed a suite of questions that were asked of participants in each working session.

This report is a digest of the input from those who attended the seven working sessions and responded to the structured questions.

Keywords: Great Plains, grasslands, working lands, invasive species, native plants, wildlife, fire, energy development, climate

Citation

Finch, Deborah M., Carolyn Baldwin, David P. Brown, Katelyn P. Driscoll, Erica Fleishman, Paulette L. Ford, Brice Hanberry, Amy J. Symstad, Bill Van Pelt, and Richard Zabel. "Management opportunities and research priorities for Great Plains grasslands." Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-398. Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 56 p. 398 (2019).

Grassland management actions influence soil conditions and plant community responses to winter #climate change #rxfire @hennhouse11 @edamschen

TPOS Note:

This research is the latest publication from a recent research-management collaboration. The experiment was established on property owned and managed by The Prairie Enthusiasts (https://www.theprairieenthusiasts.org/), an organization which has been very active in the protection and management of tallgrass prairie and oak savanna in the TPOS region.

The research was also supported by the Joint Fire Science Program’s Graduate Research Initiative (GRIN) for masters and doctoral students. Applications for the 2023 funding cycle are now open. More information is available here - https://www.firescience.gov/JFSP_funding_announcements.cfm?pass_task_id=23-1-01.

For previous work from this project see also “Disturbance Type and Timing Affect Growth and Tolerance Strategies in Grassland Plant Leaves” (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2021.09.005).

About this article:

“Grassland management actions influence soil conditions and plant community responses to winter climate change”

This open access article was originally published October 17, 2022, in the journal Ecosphere.
Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4270)

Abstract

Restoring ecosystems in a changing climate requires understanding how management interventions interact with climate conditions. In tallgrass prairies, disturbance through fire, mowing, or grazing is a critical force in maintaining herbaceous plant diversity. However, unlike historical fire regimes that occurred throughout the growing season, management actions like prescribed fire and mowing are commonly limited to the spring or fall seasons. Warming winters are resulting in less snow, causing overwintering plants to experience reduced insulation from snow and these more extreme winter conditions may be exacerbated or ameliorated depending on the timing of management actions. Understanding this novel interaction between the timing of management actions and snow depth is critical for managing and restoring grassland ecosystems.
Here, we applied experimental management treatments (spring and fall burn and fall mow) in combination with snow depth manipulations to test whether the type and timing of commonly implemented disturbances interact with snow depth to affect restored prairie plant diversity and composition. Overall, snow manipulations and management actions influenced soil temperature while only management actions influenced spring thaw timing. Burning in the fall, which removes litter prior to winter resulted in colder soils and earlier spring thaw timing. However, plant communities were mostly resistant to these effects. Instead, plants responded to management actions such that burning and mowing, regardless of timing, increased plant diversity and spring burning increased flowering structure cover while reducing weedy cool season grass cover.

Together these results suggest that grassland plant communities are resistant to winter climate change over the short term and that burning or mowing is critical to promoting plant diversity in tallgrass prairies.

Keywords: tallgrass prairies; climate change; prescribed fire; mowing; fall burning

Citation

Henn, Jonathan J., and Ellen I. Damschen. "Grassland management actions influence soil conditions and plant community responses to winter climate change." Ecosphere 13, no. 10 (2022): e4270.

Growing or dormant season burns: the effects of burn season on bee and plant communities #rxfire #pollinators

“Growing or dormant season burns: the effects of burn season on bee and plant communities”

This open access article was originally published August 19, 2019, in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation.

Access the article through the permanent web address (DOI) (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01840-6)

Abstract

Habitat management can play a critical role in increasing and maintaining species diversity, but timing of management techniques can have significant effects on biodiversity management. In tallgrass prairie systems, prescribed burns are a common method to promote diversity.

Managers prefer winter dormant season burns but this timing differs significantly from the historic growing season burns that helped shape this community, and it is largely unexplored whether changing burn season has significant effects on higher trophic levels. Here we investigate how the timing of such burns affects the bee communities and their resources.

Depending on life history traits such as above or below ground nesting, timing of fire management can have differential effects on bee diversity. In 2016 and 2017, bees were collected from prairies in south-central Illinois using active netting, pan traps, and vane traps, and measurements of plant species, flower abundance and ground cover were recorded.

While both burns showed significant improvement over unburned areas, growing season burns had the greatest total bare ground area and an increase in overall bee abundances. This may suggest long term benefits of growing season burns.

The results suggest that growing season burns are beneficial for bees, and the use of either burn season can be utilized for land management.

Keywords: Bee;  Fire;  Land management;  Prescribed burn;  Conservation; Species diversity

Citation

Decker, Brenna L., and Alexandra N. Harmon-Threatt. "Growing or dormant season burns: the effects of burn season on bee and plant communities." Biodiversity and Conservation 28, no. 13 (2019): 3621-3631.