@article {JRN54776, title = {Rangelands: Where anthromes meet their limits}, journal = {Land}, volume = {6}, year = {2017}, month = {05/2017}, chapter = {31}, abstract = {

Defining rangelands as anthromes enabled Ellis and Ramankutty (2008) to conclude that more than three-quarters of Earth{\textquoteright}s land is anthropogenic; without rangelands, this figure would have been less than half. They classified all lands grazed by domestic livestock as rangelands, provided that human population densities were low; similar areas without livestock were excluded and classified instead as {\textquoteleft}wildlands{\textquoteright}. This paper examines the empirical basis and conceptual assumptions of defining and categorizing rangelands in this fashion. \ Empirically, we conclude that a large proportion of rangelands, although used to varying degrees by domesticated livestock, are not altered significantly by this use, especially in arid, highly variable environments and in settings with long evolutionary histories of herbivory by wild animals. Even where changes have occurred, the dynamics and components of many rangelands remain structurally and functionally equivalent to those that preceded domestic livestock grazing or would be found in its absence. In much of Africa and Asia, grazing is so longstanding as to be inextricable from {\textquoteleft}natural{\textquoteright} or reference conditions for those sites. Thus, the extent of anthropogenic biomes is significantly overstated. \ Conceptually, rangelands reveal the dependence of the anthromes thesis on outdated assumptions of ecological climax and equilibrium. Coming to terms with rangelands{\textemdash}how they can be classified, understood, and managed sustainably{\textemdash}thus offers important lessons for understanding anthromes and the Anthropocene as a whole. At the root of these lessons, we argue, is not the question of human impacts on ecosystems but property relations among humans.

}, doi = {10.3390/land6020031}, url = {files/bibliography/17-009.pdf}, author = {N. F. Sayre and Diana K. Davis and Brandon T Bestelmeyer and Jebediah C. Williamson} } @article {49863, title = {Earth Stewardship of rangelands: coping with ecological, economic, and political marginality}, journal = {Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment}, volume = {11}, year = {2013}, month = {09/2013}, pages = {348-354}, chapter = {348}, abstract = {

Rangelands encompass 30\–40\% of Earth\’s land surface and support 1 to 2 billion people. Their predominant use is extensive livestock production by pastoralists and ranchers. But rangelands are characterized by ecological, economic, and political marginality, and higher value, more intensive land uses are impinging on rangelands around the world. Earth Stewardship of rangelands must address both livestock management and the broader socioecological dynamics that promote land-use changes, fragmentation, and degradation. We identify specific gradients on which human\–rangeland systems can be arrayed, including issues of variability, adaptation to disturbance, commercialization, land-use change, land-tenure security, and effective governance, and we illustrate the gradients\’ interactions and effects in sites worldwide. The result is a synthetic framework to help in understanding how rangeland Earth Stewardship can be achieved in the face of marginality, globalization, and climate change.

}, keywords = {climate change, Earth Stewardship, globalization, marginality, rangeland management, socioecological dynamics}, doi = {10.1890/120333}, url = {/files/bibliography/13-025.pdf}, author = {N. F. Sayre and McAllister, Ryan R. J. and Brandon T Bestelmeyer and Moritz, Mark and M.G. Turner} } @article {49903, title = {The {\textquoteright}range problem{\textquoteright} after a century of rangeland science: New research themes for altered landscapes}, journal = {Rangeland Ecology and Management}, volume = {65}, year = {2012}, month = {11/2012}, pages = {545-552}, chapter = {545}, abstract = {

The rangeland science profession in the United States has its roots in the widespread overgrazing and concurrent severe droughts of the late 19th Century. These drivers contributed to rangeland resource degradation especially in the American Southwest-what E. O. Wooton (1908) called "The Range Problem." Although logical for the time, the scientific activities and resulting policies that arose out of this catastrophe were based on reductionist experimentation and productionist emphases on food and fiber. After a century of science and policy there are two additional perspectives that shape our vision for the emphases of the future. First, rangeland landscapes are extremely heterogeneous; general principles derived from scientific experimentation cannot be easily, or generally, applied without adjusting to the distinct societal and ecological characteristics of a location. Second, rangeland management occurs at spatial scales considerably larger than those that have typically been addressed in range science. Scaling up science results is not a simple, additive process. The leading features of the emerging science are (1) research at landscape scales and (2) over longer time spans, that (3) approaches conservation and management practices as treatments requiring scientific evaluation, (4) incorporates local knowledge, (5) is explicitly applied in nature, and (6) is transparent in its practice. We strongly argue for a science that supports resource management by testing hypotheses relevant to actual conservation practices and iteratively applying its findings in partnership with managers in an ongoing, adaptive fashion.

}, keywords = {applied science, ecosystem management, range science history, science-management linkages, translational science}, doi = {10.2111/REM-D-11-00113.1}, url = {/files/bibliography/12-029.pdf}, author = {N. F. Sayre and William deBuys and Brandon T Bestelmeyer and Kris Havstad} } @conference {50280, title = {Bulldozers, mental models, and aerial photography: Geographies of long-term private restoration on semi-arid rangelands}, booktitle = {Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting}, series = {Association of American Geographers}, year = {2008}, month = {April 14-19, 200}, pages = {18115}, abstract = {Private efforts to restore degraded Southwestern desert grasslands have been under way at least since the 1920s, but their effects are little studied and poorly understood. Most are considered simply to have failed, or to have been swamped by the effects of climate and fire suppression. These judgments may need to be reevaluated on longer temporal scales, however, in light of evidence that semiarid rangeland systems are strongly determined by "slow" variables and thresholds of nonlinear change. Drought, erosion, fire, grazing and other disturbances may leave historical legacies that persist on scales of decades or longer, and management interventions may require comparable periods of time to show significant responses in target organisms. Long-term data have been collected for a handful of government research sites, and repeat photography and aerial photographs have enabled analysis of broader patterns of vegetation change, but historical information about management of private ranches has been almost wholly lacking. We use a combination of interviews, archival records, aerial photography, remote sensing and GIS to evaluate restoration efforts on the Elbrock Ranch in southwestern New Mexico over the past seventy years. This research contributes to efforts to historicize state-and-transition models in rangeland ecology, and to understand ranchers{\textquoteright}"mental models" as slow variables in their own right. It also enables us to see beyond dualisms of human/natural and pristine/degraded to geographies of restoration on very large spatial and temporal scales.}, keywords = {aerial photography, bulldozers, private, restoration}, author = {N. F. Sayre and Whelan, M. and E.L. Fredrickson and Brandon T Bestelmeyer} } @article {50597, title = {Ecological and geographical scale: Parallels and potential for integration}, journal = {Progress in Human Geography}, volume = {29}, year = {2005}, month = {06/2005}, pages = {276-290}, chapter = {276}, abstract = {

Scale has emerged as a major conceptual issue in both ecology and human geography in recent decades, due principally to the appearance of new global problems and processes that challenge conventional disciplinary theories and methods. Yet, very little work has examined ecological and geographical scale side by side or attempted to bring them into constructive engagement. This is unfortunate because human geography can help address ecologists\&$\#$39; expressed need for greater attention to political and economic processes affecting ecosystems and because ecological scale can provide needed conceptual and methodological clarity to \&$\#$39;the scale question\&$\#$39; in geography. This paper reviews recent debates about scale in the two disciplines and presents the case for integration, not by reduction of geographical problems to ecological ones but on the basis of a shared interest in understanding the complex interactions of multiscaled processes. Three distinctions articulated by ecologists are missing from the debate among human geographers: between scale and level, between empirical and methodological dimensions of scale, and, within the methodological dimension, between grain and extent. I show how these distinctions help resolve recent disputes in human geography, outline a framework for research on scale, and illustrate my points with a brief case study.

}, keywords = {ecological scale, geographical scale, human geography, rabgeland ecology, scaling effects, thresholds}, doi = {10.1191/0309132505ph546oa}, url = {/files/bibliography/05-026.pdf}, author = {N. F. Sayre} } @article {50596, title = {Interacting effects of landownership, land use, and endangered species on conservation of southwestern U.S. rangelands}, journal = {Conservation Biology}, volume = {19}, year = {2005}, month = {June 2005}, pages = {783-792}, chapter = {783}, abstract = {The contemporary southwestern United States is characterized by fire-adapted ecosystems; large numbers of federally listed threatened and endangered species; a patchwork of federal, state, and private landownership; and a long history of livestock grazing as the predominant land use. I compared eight sites in southern Arizona and New Mexico to assess the interacting effects of these characteristics on conservation practices and outcomes. There was widespread interest and private-sector leadership in restoring fire to southwestern rangelands, and there is a shortage of predictive scientific knowledge about the effects of fire and livestock grazing on threatened and endangered species. It was easier to restore fire to lands that were either privately owned or not grazed, in part because of obstacles created by threatened and endangered species on grazed public lands. Collaborative management facilitated conservation practices and outcomes, and periodic removal of livestock may be necessary for conservation, but permanent livestock exclusion may be counterproductive because of interactions with land-use and landownership patterns.}, keywords = {collaborative management, Endangered Species Act, fire, livestock grazing, riparian areas, threatened species}, url = {/files/bibliography/05-026.pdf}, author = {N. F. Sayre} } @article {50716, title = {Viewpoint: The need for qualitative research to understand ranch management}, journal = {Journal of Range Management}, volume = {57}, year = {2004}, month = {November 2004}, pages = {668-674}, chapter = {668}, abstract = {The use and management of rangelands involves both ecological and social processes, and it is in the interaction of these that conservation is or is not achieved. Overall, the ecological dimensions of rangelands and rangeland management have been studied in greater detail and are better understood than the social dimensions. This paper argues that qualitative methods are necessary to understand the management of rangelands by ranchers. Existing studies using quantitative methods have found little correlation between ranchers{\textquoteright} management practices and a variety of social factors. One consistent finding of these studies, however, is that profit is a secondary or insignificant motivation among ranchers, casting doubt on the premise that economic self-interest motivates ranchers to embrace improved management practices. The theoretical and methodological implications of this finding have not been adequately recognized in rangeland science. With its greater flexibility and attention to context, qualitative research can reveal social, historical, political, and economic factors that affect ranch management but have eluded quantitative studies. In addition, qualitative methods are better suited to capturing both the processes that generate ranchers{\textquoteright} "mental models" and the historical information needed in light of recent theoretical advances in rangeland ecology{\textquoteright} Suggestions for future research on ranch management include conducting case studies of smaller areas over longer temporal periods, focusing on interactions among ranchers, giving ranchers a greater role in identifying research needs, studying urbanization and other "new" rangeland issues, and drawing on research about pastoralist societies elsewhere.}, keywords = {land use change, mental models, qualitative research methods, ranch management, rnachers, social processes, sustainability}, url = {/files/bibliography/04-011.pdf}, author = {N. F. Sayre} } @proceedings {50820, title = {The genesis of range science with implications for current development policies}, year = {2003}, month = {July 26-August 1}, pages = {1976-1985}, address = {Durban, South Africa}, abstract = {At the opening of the new millennium, both range science and pastoral development find themselves in a state of flux. Recent decades have witnessed widespread criticism of pastoral development programs implemented in the latter half of the twentieth century (Agrawal 1998, Ferguson 1994, Hary et al. 1996). Meanwhile, ecological research has cast doubt on the Clementsian paradigm that informed range science and policy for most of the last century (Vesk and Westoby, 2001; Westoby, Walker and Noy-Meir, 1989). The need to reassess and reconfigure both the theory and practice of pastoral/range management is widely acknowledged (Mearns, 2002; Turner, 1998). Curiously, however, little attention has been paid to the historical origins of the range science-development nexus in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from which emerged the model for much subsequent development work. As scientists, policy makers, and pastoralists work to find new models, a consideration of this history provides important perspective and lessons for the challenges ahead.}, url = {/files/bibliography/03-029.pdf}, author = {N. F. Sayre and Maria Fern{\'a}ndez-Gim{\'e}nez} } @proceedings {50821, title = {Recognizing history in range ecology: 100 years of science and management on the Santa Rita Experimental Range}, year = {2003}, month = {October 30-Novem}, pages = {1-15}, publisher = {U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station}, address = {Tucson, AZ}, abstract = {At the centennial of the Santa Rita Experimental Range, historical analysis is called for on two levels. First, as a major site in the history of range ecology, the Santa Rita illuminates past successes and failures in science and management and the ways in which larger social, economic, and political factors have shaped scientific research. Second, with the turn away from equilibrium-based models in range sciencea turn prompted in part by research at the Santa Ritathere is a growing need for history in range ecology itself. I discuss the needs, premises, and events underlying establishment of the Santa Rita in 1903. Then I examine the evolution of research and management recommendations through four major periods from 1901 to 1988, and I discuss the land swap that transferred the Santa Rita to State ownership in 1988 to 1991. Finally, I consider what effects the Santa Rita has had on rangelands and range management in the region. I argue that a static conception of the carrying capacity of Southwestern rangelands was imposed for economic and political reasons, over the objections or reservations of early range scientists at the Santa Rita, and that this may have contributed both to range depletion and to rancorous relations between public agencies and private ranchers in the twentieth century. To meet society{\textquoteright}s current demands on rangelands, the long-term, large-scale data assembled from the Santa Rita will be critically important.}, keywords = {carrying capacity, Frederic Clements, history, mesquite, range ecology, range science, semiarid rangelands}, url = {http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_p030.pdf}, author = {N. F. Sayre} }