@inbook {49929,
	title = {Landscape approaches to rangeland conservation practices},
	booktitle = {Conservation Benefits of Rangeland Practices: Assessment, Recommendations, and Knowledge Gaps},
	year = {2011},
	pages = {337-370},
	publisher = {Allen Press},
	organization = {Allen Press},
	chapter = {8},
	address = {Lawrence, KS},
	abstract = {Our review indicates that landscape perspectives are needed to ensure the long-term success conservation practices in rangelands. We recommend that conservation practitioners consider several scales of spatial pattern and related spatial processes, including cumulative effects, each time a practice is applied. A large body of literature supports the utility of a landscape perspective. The core concepts include spatial heterogeneity, spatial pattern, and spatial scaling. Spatial heterogeneity is used to understand why a practice succeeds or fails in different areas. Spatial heterogeneity can also be a primary goal of practices. Spatial patterns are used to indicate critical processes that are not reflected in other measures, such as connectivity for wildlife movement or runoff and erosion potential. Patterns too can be a conservation objective. Spatial scaling is used to understand the dimensions of the land area over which spatial interactions link practices in one place to effects in other places, and conversely, how characteristics of the landscape affect the local success of a practice. The concepts are increasingly being connected to practical tools that can be used by planners. The tools can be used both to help design practices and to design the monitoring programs that evaluate their effects.\&nbsp; A spatial hierarchy focuses attention on the data needed at each spatial scale governing ecological processes of interest. In order of decreasing scale, major land resource areas, soil geomorphic systems, watersheds, ecological sites, states or plant communities, and patches each relate to processes governing the management of rangelands. Furthermore, consideration of societal information such as land ownership is usually needed at broad scales. Each of these data sources can be consulted in a systematic way, which we described in nine steps, to design and evaluate practices in a landscape. While some of the tools are already used by conservation planners, the development of others will require a scientific and institutional investment by the federal government and support by universities and other science providers. Spatial data information systems should be developed that link maps, models, and pattern-based metrics to support planning and monitoring design. Databases are needed to house the resulting data alongside information on their landscape context. The interpretations of these data should be linked to ESDs. Foremost, we must invest in training and research to instill an understanding of the concepts and a capacity for reasoning about landscape processes. We suspect that such investments would pay for themselves, and then some, by improving conservation effectiveness in the millions of acres of rangelands that will be treated in years to come.},
	keywords = {book, chapter, conservation practices, landscape approaches, rangeland, report},
	isbn = {978-0-9849499-0-8},
	url = {/files/bibliography/11-035.pdf},
	author = {Brandon T Bestelmeyer and Wu, X.B. and Joel R. Brown and S. Fuhlendorf and G. Fults},
	editor = {D.D. Briske}
}
@article {50417,
	title = {Soil-Geomorphic Heterogeneity Governs Patchy Vegetation Dynamics at an Arid Ecotone},
	journal = {Ecology},
	volume = {87},
	number = {4},
	year = {2006},
	month = {April 2006},
	pages = {963-973},
	abstract = {<p>Soil properties are well known to affect vegetation, but the role of soil heterogeneity in the patterning of vegetation dynamics is poorly documented. We asked whether the location of an ecotone separating grass-dominated and sparsely-vegetated areas reflected only historical variation in degradation or was related to variation in inherent soil properties. We then asked whether changes in the cover and spatial organization of vegetated and bare patches assessed using repeat aerial photography reflected self-organizing dynamics unrelated to soil variation or the stable patterning of soil variation. We found that the present-day ecotone was related to a shift from more weakly to more strongly developed soils. Parts of the ecotone were stable for over 60 year, but shifts between bare and vegetated states, as well as persistently vegetated and bare states, occurred largely in small (\&lt;40 m2) patches throughout the study area. The probability that patches were presently vegetated or bare, as well as the probability that vegetation persisted and/or established over the 60 year period, was negatively related to surface calcium caronate and positively related to subsurface clay content. Thus, only a fraction of the landscape was susceptible to vegetation change and the sparesely-vegetated area likely featured a higher frequency of susceptible soil patches. Patch dynamics and self-organizing processes can be constrained by subtle (and often unrecognized) soil heterogeneity.</p>
},
	keywords = {autocorrelation, Chihuahuan Desert, patch dynamics, rangeland, self-organization, state-and-transition model, threshold},
	doi = {10.1890/0012-9658(2006)87[963:SHGPVD]2.0.CO;2},
	url = {/files/bibliography/06-015.pdf},
	author = {Brandon T Bestelmeyer and J.P. Ward and Kris Havstad}
}
@article {50637,
	title = {Land management in the American Southwest: A state-and-transition approach to ecosystem complexity},
	journal = {Environmental Management},
	volume = {34},
	number = {1},
	year = {2004},
	month = {July 1, 2004},
	pages = {38-51},
	abstract = {<p>State-and-transition models are increasingly being used to guide rangeland management. These models provide a relatively simple, management-oriented way to classify land condition (state) and to describe the factors that might cause a shift to another state (a transition). There are many formulations of state-and-transition models in the literature. The version we endorse does not adhere to any particular generalities about ecosystem dynamics, but it includes consideration of several kinds of dynamics and management response to them. In contrast to previous uses of state-and-transition models, we propose that models can, at present, be most effectively used to specify and qualitatively compare the relative benefits and potential risks of different management actions (e.g., fire and grazing) and other factors (e.g., invasive species and climate change) on specified areas of land. High spatial and temporal variability and complex interactions preclude the meaningful use of general quantitative models. Forecasts can be made on a case-by-case basis by interpreting qualitative and quantitative indicators, historical data, and spatially structured monitoring data based on conceptual models. We illustrate how science- based conceptual models are created using several rangeland examples that vary in complexity. In doing so, we illustrate the implications of designating plant communities and states in models, accounting for varying scales of pattern in vegetation and soils, interpreting the presence of plant communities on different soils and dealing with our uncertainty about how those communities were assembled and how they will change in the future. We conclude with observations about how models have helped to improve management decision-making.</p>
},
	keywords = {Chihuahuan Desert, community dynamics, desert grassland, grazing management, rangeland, resilience, simulation models, soil maps, thresholds},
	doi = {10.1007/s00267-004-0047-4 },
	url = {/files/bibliography/04-015.pdf},
	author = {Brandon T Bestelmeyer and Joel R. Brown and Jeffrey E. Herrick and D. Trujillo and Kris Havstad}
}
@conference {50632,
	title = {Soil-geomorphic basis of divergent landscape trajectories in the Chihuahuan Desert},
	booktitle = {89th Annual Meeting, Ecological Society of America},
	year = {2004},
	month = {August 1, 2004},
	pages = {p. 45},
	address = {Portland, OR},
	abstract = {A major emphasis of rangeland ecology and management is to understand the factors that regulate rates of vegetation and soil change. Explanations of change have traditionally ignored subtle soil heterogeneity and emphasized single processes. We sought to employ a multiscale, multifactor framework to interpret variability in rates of vegetation change occurring within a Chihuahuan Desert grassland under similar management. We used a combination of ground-based measures and remote-sensed data from 1936 and 1996 to construct a scenario explaining different rates of grass loss in two adjacent grassland areas on a piedmont slope. The two areas now merge at sharp ecotone separating a high-grass, low-shrub cover state and a state with lowgrass, high-shrub, and high-bare ground cover. The basis for these divergent trajectories is related to differences in the spatial pattern of soil calcium carbonate content and argillic horizon development. Where high carbonate soils with weak argillic horizons are relatively continuous, single-crown and stoloniferous grasses dominate at the expense of a rhizomatous grass. Grazing appears to have contributed to higher connectivity of bare ground where single-crown grasses predominated, leading to increased susceptibility to erosion, lower soil aggregate stability, lower rainfall infiltration, and soil truncation leading to accelerated rates of grass and shrub mortality.  Under these conditions, grass and shrub cover are positively correlated at fine scales even when they are negatively correlated at a broad scale. Eroded soil accumulates on the highgrass side of the ecotone, contributing to ecotone contrast. This example illustrates the need for multiscale perspectives in explaining ecosystem resistance and resilience.},
	keywords = {Chihuahuan Desert, ecology, management, rangeland, vegetation and soil change},
	author = {Brandon T Bestelmeyer and J.P. Ward and Jeffrey E. Herrick and A.J. Tugel}
}
@proceedings {50745,
	title = {What does an ecological threshold look like?},
	year = {2003},
	month = {July 26 - August},
	pages = {688-690},
	address = {Durban, South Africa},
	abstract = {Recent concepts in rangeland health and management emphasize that ecosystem structure may shift abruptly in time once a critical threshold is crossed.   Transitions between grasslands and desert shrublands, for example, are thought to be triggered by a combination of high grazing pressure and drought.  Once thresholds are crossed, novel constraints prevent reestablishment of historic ecosystem states.  Thus, land management policy is being oriented towards identifying and avoiding these thresholds.  One problem with implementing such policy is that land managers and ecologists are not sure what critical thresholds are; this stems in part from a lack of conceptual clarity.  We argue that thresholds in rangeland structure are not singular phenomena but exist at several levels along a chain of causation.  We illustrate this conceptual approach with a study of a grassland-shrubland transition in south-central New Mexico.  At the broadest scale (25 km2), the shift from a grass-dominated area to a shrub-dominated area is coincident with a slight change in topographic position, a change in soil texture, and increased channelization.  At intermediate scales (100-1000 m2), the maintenance of grass cover is promoted by the presence of patches oriented perpendicularly to the direction of slope, whereas shrubs dominate where patches are elongated in the direction of the slope.  At the finest scales (1-10m2), grasses are associated with patches having sandier surface textures, low calcium carbonate at the surface, and higher infiltration rates than shrub-dominated patches.  Thus, the causes of the shift from grassland to shrubland are scale-dependent and thresholds in several processes can be identified.},
	keywords = {ecological, health, management, rangeland, threshold, transition},
	url = {/files/bibliography/03-027Proc.pdf},
	author = {Brandon T Bestelmeyer and Joel R. Brown and Jeffrey E. Herrick and Kris Havstad}
}
