Tips for Dryland Restoration - Winter 2021-2022
Science for Management
Southwest Biological Science Center Tribal Partnerships
RAMPS' collaborative work featured at SBSC
IN THIS EDITION: 2021 year in review, native seed development process, RestoreNet protocol published and lots of associated research, a handful of climate change science, and more.
THIS IS A PRODUCT OF THE RESTORATION ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING PROGRAM FOR THE SOUTHWEST (RAMPS)
Hello RAMPS Community,
The effects of climate change are reaching into every corner of the Southwest, making ecosystem restoration an appropriate and necessary response for maintaining ecosystem function, sequestering carbon, and protecting lives and livelihoods. The Restoration Assessment and Monitoring Program for the Southwest (RAMPS) has been working hard to understand climate change impacts, support land management decisions, and develop nuanced guidance for dryland restoration in these times of unprecedented change. In this issue of our newsletter, we share recent climate change-related findings, look back at our 2021 accomplishments, and report on what we’re discovering from our RestoreNet experiment. We are also happy to announce the RestoreNet protocol is published and ready to be distributed and used by anyone who wants to join the experimental network. Finally, we’ve highlighted work from our USGS colleagues that we hope you find relevant and useful. We look forward to continuing our service to our stakeholders and advancing the science and practice of ecological restoration in 2022. Thank you for supporting our efforts, and please reach out if you want to collaborate or learn more about our activities.
Warm regards,
Molly McCormick, RAMPS Coordinator
Seth Munson and John Bradford, RAMPS Ecologists
2021 YEAR IN REVIEW
$1.8M New Funding Leveraged
9,914 Stakeholders Reached with Virtual Outreach (website & social media)
510 Newsletter Subscribers
109 People Attended RAMPS Training Workshops
18 New Publications
32 Presentations
12 Research Projects
7 New Projects Started
5 Collaborative Working Groups
STAKEHOLDER VOICES
“Our park is already experiencing effects of climate change; I am relieved and grateful that this conversation (facilitated by RAMPS) is happening.” – National Park Service Natural Resource Manager
“Finally got around to reading your recent paper on the native seed development process in Restoration Ecology! Awesome paper – definitely going to use the material to describe the issues involved with native seed when they come up in conversation with partners.” - USDA - Agricultural Research Service Ecologist
“We see a genuine need for innovative management strategies (that will be developed by this RAMPS project) that can help livestock producers achieve multiple management goals given unprecedented challenges wrought by ongoing and episodic extreme drought.” – Arizona Rancher
“I want to look more at the USGS RAMPS RestoreNet effort – they are experimenting with a lot of the management tactics we want to take in the future, so we don’t have to use park resources to conduct research.” - National Park Service Natural Resource Manager
RESEARCH UPDATES
Explaining the Steps for Developing Native Seed: Collection to Restoration
New paper serves as a primer for increasing native seed for restoration
Ever wonder why increasing the supply of native seed for restoration is so challenging? A new publication describes each of the steps, the challenges, special considerations, and gives examples of groups across the U.S. who are finding solutions. The table and figure in the paper can be used to quickly describe the process to new staff and stakeholders (Figure at left). The article is part of a special issue for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a global movement to improve the condition of the land and combat the effects of climate change. RAMPS coordinator, Molly McCormick, was the lead author of the article. Read the article here.
CITATION: McCormick, M.L., Carr, A.N., Massatti, R., Winkler, D.E., De Angelis, P., and Olwell, P., 2021, How to increase the supply of native seed to improve restoration success—The US native seed development process: Restoration Ecology, e13499, p. 1-9
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RestoreNet
RestoreNet protocol published!
RestoreNet is a networked ecological restoration experiment developed by RAMPS that spans the Southwest and includes 26 locations in 5 states. Researchers and land managers can join the network by installing an experiment with our newly published RestoreNet protocol. Read the protocol.
CITATION: Laushman, K.M., McCormick, M.L., Munson, S.M., Balazs, K.R., and Butterfield, B.J., 2021, Protocol for installing and monitoring a RestoreNet restoration field trial network site: U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods, book 2, chap. A18, 34 p.
Addressing a major restoration bottleneck by understanding seedling traits
One of the biggest factors limiting successful revegetation is survival of seedlings at the restoration site. We can begin to address some of the mechanisms that limit seedling survival if we know more about the seedlings themselves. In this study, we sought to understand seedling traits (characteristics that influence growth and survival), how those traits shift over the course of development (20-62 days after emergence), and how these traits differ from adult plants. We found that seedling traits like the ratio of roots to above-ground shoots, length and mass of roots, and thickness of leaves, had large shifts over time. We also found that trait values of seedlings differed from adult plants, even though they are often assumed to be the same. With this information, we can begin to develop and test treatments that work to support the unique traits of seedlings at our RestoreNet sites and reduce the seedling survival bottleneck. This article was written by RAMPS’ RestoreNet collaborators and led by the 2019-2020 RAMPS post-doctoral scholar, Carrie Havrilla. Read the article.
CITATION: Havrilla, C.,A., Munson, S.M., Yackulic, E.O., Butterfield, B.J., 2021, Ontogenetic trait shifts: Seedlings display high trait variability during early stages of development, Functional Ecology 35: 2409-2423
Which plant traits lead to higher survival at a restoration site?
Plant traits can help inform species selection for revegetation, but to employ this strategy, we must first understand which plant traits perform better under various environmental conditions. In order to build a knowledge base for southwestern US plants, we looked at the survival of 29 species of plants based on their traits in 9,216 greenhouse grown plants installed throughout the RestoreNet sites on the Colorado Plateau. At the warmer sites, plant traits that allowed for quick up take of available water improved survival. At the cooler and intermediate sites, the more extreme traits (at the low or high end of the trait spectrum) performed better than average traits. The study suggests which traits may be broadly beneficial for restoration treatments on the Colorado Plateau and opportunities to select species with better suited traits to match site conditions. We will be using this information to inform future experiments at our RestoreNet sites. This article was co-authored by RAMPS’ RestoreNet collaborators and led by Kathleen Balazs who grew out and led the installation of all 9,216 plants as part of her PhD at Northern Arizona University. Read the article.
CITATION: Balazs, K.R., Munson, S.M., Havrilla, C.A., and Butterfield, B.J., 2021, Directional selection shifts trait distributions of planted species in dryland restoration: Journal of Ecology, online
Paying attention to the soil microbiome.
Soil degradation is common at restoration sites, and we often assume (or maybe just hope) that the effects of this degradation are ameliorated by revegetating the area. In this study, we examined the soil microbiome one year after installing seedlings across eight RestoreNet sites using genetic sequencing techniques. We found no change in the bacteria, archaea, or fungi among an unplanted site, and underneath plants that we installed in single-species or multi-species arrangements. Since our revegetation efforts had no short-term impact on the soil microbiome, we suggest that site-specific restoration treatments that target soil microbes should be considered to accelerate the establishment of desired microbial communities. In response to these findings, the next round of treatments across RestoreNet sites will be addressing degradation to the soil microbiome. RestoreNet acts as a laboratory for researchers working at the cutting-edge of ecosystem restoration; this article was a collaboration between RAMPS, University of Arizona (UA), and UA Cooperative Extension. Read the article.
CITATION: Yang, B., Balazs, K.R., Butterfield, B.J., Laushman, K.M., Munson, S.M., Gornish, E.S., and Barberán, A., 2021, Does restoration of plant diversity trigger concomitant soil microbiome changes in dryland ecosystems?: Journal of Applied Ecology, online
CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE
When air temperatures rise as a result of climate change, what will happen to soil temperatures?
Soil temperature influences seed germination and establishment rates and can impact restoration outcomes. A new study sought to further understand the ecological consequences of climate change to soils and plants by developing predictions for air and soil temperatures out to 2065-2100. Researchers used historical data (1980-2015) to develop climate projections of soil temperature at various soil depths in 5 ecosystems (desert, semiarid, mesic, woodland-shrubland, and forest). They sought to understand the relationship between air and soil temperatures for both extreme temperatures (the average maximum an area might endure) and extreme temperature events (anomalous peaks above the average). First, researchers predicted that temperatures would increase substantially in the twenty-first century. The extreme events will happen more frequently (0.9 events per decade historically to up to 38 events per decade by 2065-2100) and be more extreme than in the past (up to 5 standard deviations above average at certain soil depths by 2065-2100). By 2065-2100, extreme temperatures at 0-100cm below the surface of the soil will occur nearly every month; something that never happened historically (1980-2015). The results show how air and soil temperatures in the future will be different than historic baseline averages, and that belowground temperatures should be considered in climate adaptation planning, planning restoration projects, and developing climate change forecasts. John Bradford, RAMPS ecologist, contributed to this research. Read the article.
CITATION: Petrie, M. D., J. B. Bradford, W. K. Lauenroth, D. R. Schlaepfer, C. M. Andrews, and D. M. Bell. 2020. Non-analog increases to air, surface, and belowground temperature extreme events due to climate change. Climatic Change 163:2233-2256.
How are plants responding to climate change in the Sonoran Desert? A new study in the
Sonoran Desert investigated how climate change impacts phenology of plants using 36-years of observations. The study focused on some of the most beloved Sonoran Desert species: foothill palo verde, desert ironwood, jojoba, ocotillo, whitethorn acacia, creosote bush, brittlebush, triangle-leaf bursage, saguaro, prickly pears, and chollas. Researchers incorporated different metrics of moisture availability, temperature, weather, and climate in the analysis to better understand the drivers of change. They found that most of the species were flowering earlier (1-4 days per decade). Also, each plant responded differently to various climate metrics like drought, increased temperatures, freezing temperatures, monsoon rainfall, and decadal-scale variation in moisture. The study shows how climate change impacts are nuanced even among species growing in the same region, and this can have implications for pollination and seed collection for restoration. RAMPS ecologist, Seth Munson, contributed to the paper. Read the article.
CITATION: Zachmann, L.J., Wiens, J.F., Franklin, K., Crausbay, S.D., Landau, V.A., and Munson, S.M., 2001, Dominant Sonoran Desert plant species have divergent phenological responses to climate change: Madroño, v. 68, no. 4, p. 473-486
How are plants projected to respond to future climate change in big sagebrush plant communities?
Big sagebrush plant communities cover 76 million hectares in the western U.S., and climate change is already impacting much of its territory. This study used 52 future climate scenarios to model how biomass of big sagebrush and its associated grasses and wildflowers might change. Results showed that in cooler and wetter locations, biomass of all plants might stay the same or increase; in contrast, in warmer and drier sites, biomass of most species might decline. These effects were the most pronounced for cool season grasses and perennial wildflowers. However, warm season grasses were predicted to increase across all locations. Finally, the study found the most agreement in model outputs for biomass of all species, except big sagebrush whose biomass predictions were less certain. This information has implications for designing seed mixes to reflect long-term changes in climate and can be used for planning restoration projects as well as anticipating degradation caused by shifts in vegetation communities. John Bradford, RAMPS ecologist, contributed to the paper. Read the article.
CITATION: Palmquist, K. A., D. R. Schlaepfer, R. R. Renne, S. C. Torbit, K. E. Doherty, T. E. Remington, G. Watson, J. B. Bradford, and W. K. Lauenroth. 2021. Divergent climate change effects on widespread dryland plant communities driven by climatic and ecohydrological gradients. Global Change Biology 27:5169-5185.
Understanding stakeholders: Learning ways to deliver climate change research with ranchers
Led by the USDA Southwest Climate Hub and others, RAMPS ecologist, John Bradford, supported a workshop aimed at gaining feedback on ways to engage with the ranching community given climate change impacts to rangelands. In general, near-term forecasts delivered by word of mouth and at the geographic scale of a ranch or pasture are preferred. Additional feedback from ranching professionals and extension agents included: 1) make informational tools relevant to time and spatial scales of ranch operations; 2) include narrow time scales and historic trends when delivering information and narrow confidence intervals are acceptable; 3) information on precipitation including surface water availability at a scale smaller than a western county is of interest; and 4) near-term forage information is more useful than longer-term trends. In addition, information that includes drought impacts to other values (i.e., recreation, scenic) are of interest. Finally, the workshop findings included the importance of maintaining ongoing relationships between researchers, ranching professionals, and extension agents (or other rangeland advisors) is important. Even though ranchers often make decisions on short timeframes, understanding longer term climate trajectories can be an important element in sustainable ranch planning far into the future. Such planning may need to include seeding or other restoration treatments to build ecological resilience and promote continued ecosystem functions on rangelands. Read the article.
CITATION: Dinan, M., P. B. Adler, J. Bradford, M. Brunson, E. Elias, A. Felton, C. Greene, J. James, K. Suding, and E. Thacker. 2021. Making research relevant: Sharing climate change research with rangeland advisors to transform results into drought resilience. Rangelands.
RELEVANT RESEARCH FROM PARTNERS
USGS SOUTHWEST BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE CENTER (SBSC)
Results of woody plant thinning projects – 60 years later
New study finds thinning treatments persist, can increase water yield, and reduce sedimentation
ABSTRACT: Woody encroachment, including both woody species expansion and density increase, is a globally observed phenomenon that deteriorates arid and semi-arid rangeland health, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Mechanical and chemical control treatments are commonly performed to reduce woody cover and restore ecohydrologic function. While the immediate impacts of woody control treatments are well documented in short-term studies, treatment impacts at decadal scales are not commonly studied. Using a controlled herbicide treatment from 1954 in the Sierra Ancha Experimental Forest in central Arizona, USA, we quantify woody encroachment and associated aboveground carbon accumulation in treated and untreated watersheds. Woody encroachment and aboveground carbon are estimated using high resolution multispectral images and photogrammetric data from a fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). We then combine the contemporary UAV image-derived estimates with historical records from immediately before and after the treatment to consider long-term trends in woody vegetation cover, aboveground carbon, water yield, and sedimentation. Our results indicate that the treatment has had a lasting impact. More than six decades later, woody cover in two treated watersheds are still significantly lower compared to two control watersheds, even though woody cover increased in all four drainages. Aboveground woody carbon in the treated watersheds is approximately one half that accumulated in the control watersheds. The historical records indicate that herbicide treatment also increased water yield and reduced annual sedimentation. Given the sustained reduction in woody cover and aboveground woody biomass in treated watersheds, we infer that the herbicide treatment has had similarly long-lasting impacts on ecohydrological function. Land managers can consider legacy impacts from control treatments to better balance carbon and ecohydrological consequences of woody encroachment and treatment activities. Joel Sankey, SBSC Geologist, contributed to the study. Read the article.
CITATION: Sankey, T.T., Leonard, J., Moore, M.M., Sankey, J.B., and Belmonte, A., 2021, Carbon and ecohydrological priorities in managing woody encroachment—An UAV perspective 63 years after a control treatment: Environmental Research Letters
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Climate change impacts precipitation patterns in western U.S.
It isn’t just a hotter and drier future, but a more varied future
ABSTRACT: Changes in precipitation have far-reaching consequences for socioecological systems, especially in water-limited regions such as those common in the western US. While the total amount of precipitation is important for these systems, key aspects of precipitation timing, such as the length of dry periods between precipitation events, can strongly influence ecosystem services including ecosystem carbon uptake, productivity for grazing and forage, wildfire frequency, and intensity, and water availability for societal use. In this study, we used daily meteorological data from over three hundred long-term weather stations across the western US to understand changes in precipitation amounts and timing during the period 1976–2019. In addition to widespread warming, we found overall lower precipitation combined with increasing variability in the size of precipitation events, indicating the western US is not only getting hotter and drier, but that systems are experiencing more year-to-year variation in precipitation. We also found that the average time without precipitation has increased during the past 45 years across the southwestern US, and we saw increases in year-to-year fluctuations in these dry periods. Together, these changes will likely have large, but still poorly understood, consequences for social and ecological systems of the western US, including impacts to land condition and restoration projects. Sasha Reed, SBSC ecologist contributed to the study. Read the article.
Citation: Zhang, F., Biederman, J.A., Dannenberg, M.P., Yan, D., Reed, S.C., and Smith, W.K., 2021, Five decades of observed daily precipitation reveal longer and more variable drought events across much of the western United States: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 48, no. 7, e2020GL092293
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Climate change experiment featured in the Journal of Ecology
SBSC-led experiment working to understand how drought impacts vegetation and soil dynamics
Find out more about the science.
Citation: Hoover, DL, Pfennigwerth, AA, Duniway, MC. Drought resistance and resilience: The role of soil moisture–plant interactions and legacies in a dryland ecosystem. J Ecol. 2021; 109: 3280– 3294.
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RELEVANT RESEARCH
FROM OUR PARTNERS ACROSS USGS
Solutions: Rock detention structures positively impact watershed health
Simple one rock structures create microclimates, reduce peak flows, and increase water infiltration
ABSTRACT: The potential of ecological restoration and green infrastructure has been long suggested in the literature as adaptation strategies for a changing climate, with an emphasis on revegetation and, more recently, carbon sequestration and stormwater management. Tree planting and “natural” stormwater detention structures such as bioswales, stormwater detention basins, and sediment traps are popular approaches. However, the experimental verification of performance for these investments is scarce and does not address rock detention structures specifically. This 3-year study investigates the infiltration, peak flow mitigation, and microclimate performance of a natural wash stormwater retention installation using one-rock dams in an urban park in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Field data collected during the study do not depict change in the hydrogeomorphology. However, hydrologic modeling, using data collected from the field, portrays decreases in peak flows and increases in infiltration at the treated sites. Additionally, we observe a lengthening of microclimate cooling effects following rainfall events, as compared with the untreated sites. In this urban arid land setting, the prospect that rock detention structures themselves could reduce warming or heat effects is promising. The study shows how rock detention structures can be used for watershed restoration. This study was led by USGS physical scientist, Laura Norman from the Western Geographic Science Center. Read the article.
CITATION: Norman, Laura M., Benjamin L. Ruddell, Deborah J. Tosline, Michael K. Fell, Blair P. Greimann, and Jay R. Cederberg 2021. "Developing Climate Resilience in Aridlands Using Rock Detention Structures as Green Infrastructure" Sustainability 13, no. 20: 11268.
RAMPS is a program of the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center located in Flagstaff, AZ
RAMPS engages stakeholders within the Department of the Interior, other federal and state agencies, tribal governments, and on private lands to provide guidance and support for effective restoration strategies across the southwestern U.S. The RAMPS network consists of over 500 individuals representing 50+ agencies, organizations, and universities working together to increase land productivity and reduce threats posed by environmental hazards. RAMPS is a program of the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center and Ecosystem Mission Area.
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