@proceedings {JRN55364, title = {From desert pasture to dinner plate: Evaluating the sustainability of supply chains for beef cattle coming from ranches of the Southwest}, year = {2022}, month = {2/10/2022}, abstract = {Consumers and producers worldwide are paying attention to the environmental and social outcomes of beef production. The Society for Range Management knows that rangeland cattle production can impart a light environmental footprint, and sometimes even improve ecosystem services from rangelands, while being central to rural livelihoods. However, the environmental and social outcomes of beef that originates on grazinglands is integrally tied with processing, distribution, and consumption beyond ranch gates. In this symposium we will explore the connections among the links of the supply chains originating on ranches of the southwestern US and evaluate strategies for sustainability from pasture to plate, even in the face of a warming and drying climate. To encourage audience participation, we will provide a whiteboard or sticky note activity after each presentation to solicit feedback from the audience about applicability of the topic to their work, as well as suggestions for improving applicability more broadly.}, keywords = {beef cattle, desert, dinner plate, evaluating, pasture, ranches, Southwest, supply chains, sustainability}, author = {S. Spiegal and Jean Steiner and Skye Aney and Matthew M. McIntosh} } @proceedings {JRN55371, title = {Nutrient circularity for sustainability in beef supply chains: Comparing the performance of three manureshed approaches}, year = {2022}, month = {4/4/2022}, abstract = {Expectations of the beef industry are multiplying as communities seek to build sustainable agri-food systems for the long term. Nutrient circularity {\textendash} recovering nutrients from manures and post-harvest byproducts and reusing them for agricultural production {\textendash} is a promising yet complex strategy for achieving sustainability goals from grazing pasture to dinner plate. In the United States and Canada, flows of cattle from land-based systems to feedlots in the built environment provide opportunities for circular management, in which concentrated feedlot manure is cycled back onto either corn fed to cattle in the feedlot phase or the hay fed to grazing cattle in {\textquotedblleft}earlier{\textquotedblright} links of the cattle supply chain. However, such flows can span great distances because feedlots that produce large volumes of manure tend to be concentrated in particular regions, but the Corn Belt that could use much of their nutrient loads is in the Upper Midwest and the hay-grazing systems that send cattle to feedlots are widely distributed. Systematically recycling manure from concentrated feedlots back to the land-based systems where cattle originated can help the US and Canadian beef industries meet their goals, but such efforts would require initial investments to transform management practices, trade structures, and social networks. With these major societal investments at stake, a reliable understanding of the tradeoffs of various approaches is needed. In turn understanding tradeoffs requires reliable data about geographically-specific flows coupled with expertise from multiple disciplines to interpret the data. Yet this sort of knowledge is rare. We sought to help fill this knowledge gap by comparing three manure recycling strategies using the conceptual framework of the {\textquotedblright}manureshed{\textquotedblright} {\textendash} the lands where surplus manure nutrients from concentrated animal feeding sites can be recycled to meet production, environmental, and socio-economic goals.}, keywords = {beef supply chains, manureshed, Nutrient circularity, sustainability}, author = {S. Spiegal and Meredith Gwendwr and S. Bittman and Maria Silveira and Jo{\~a}o M.B. Vendramini and C. A. Rotz and Colton K Flynn and Mark Boggess and Peter J. A. Kleinman} } @proceedings {JRN55357, title = {Facilitating knowledge exchange around strategies for sustainability}, year = {2021}, month = {12/9/2021}, abstract = {Economic and environmental stresses on cattle producers in the Southwest, already operating on very narrow margins, are predicted to intensify under a warmer, drier, future (Spiegal et al. 2020). Reduction in carrying capacity of some rangeland sites has already been documented (McIntosh et al. 2019), spurring the need to find new ways to adapt to old but intensifying problems of aridity and frequent drought in the region. Over the course of the past year, the Sustainable Southwest Beef Project{\textquoteright}s extension team has undertaken a number of activities to facilitate knowledge exchange around strategies which may enhance cattle production in the southwest under future conditions. Here we present highlights from these efforts. All products described here can be accessed at https://southwestbeef.org/.}, keywords = {cattle producers, Economic, environmental stresses, sustainability}, url = {files/bibliography/21-060.pdf}, author = {Skye Aney and Emile H. Elias and Reanna Burnett and Craig Gifford and G. Duff and BW Auvermann and Jean Steiner} } @article {JRN55278, title = {Assessing sustainability goals using big data: Collaborative adaptive management in the Malpai borderlands}, journal = {Rangeland Ecology \& Management}, volume = {77}, year = {2021}, month = {07/2021}, pages = {17-29}, chapter = {17}, abstract = {Collaborative adaptive management is a means to achieve social and ecological goals in complex natural resource management settings. Evaluation of collaborative management outcomes, however, is difficult at the scale of large landscapes. We developed an approach for such evaluations using long-term, spatiotemporal gridded or county-level datasets alongside local information on changes in ranch ownership. We applied this approach to evaluate the sustainability goals of the Malpai Borderlands Group (MBG) by comparing the MBG landscape to surrounding, similar desert grassland landscapes. We matched datasets, where possible, to management goals, including the preservation of ranching livelihoods, prevention of rangeland fragmentation by exurban development, sustaining the ecological role of fire, limiting or reversing woody plant encroachment into grasslands, sustaining rangeland productivity, and sustaining biodiversity. We found that the number of ranch families changed little since MBG was established, although several ranches were consolidated within some families or absentee owners, such that multiple families share other ranches. The number of beef cattle ranches declined within one MBG county, likely due to increasing depth to groundwater. Exurban development and rangeland-to-cropland conversion have been virtually nonexistent in the MBG landscape, while such conversions are common in adjacent landscapes. Coordinated fire planning with low fragmentation of rangeland has led to extensive fires in the MBG landscape, dwarfing the area burned in adjacent landscapes. The percent of land area exhibiting significant trends of increasing bare ground cover was intermediate in the MBG landscape compared with adjacent landscapes, while herbaceous and shrub cover exhibited significant trends in only a small fraction of the study region. Rangeland productivity exhibited significant declines in some landscapes, but declines were minimal in the MBG area. Our analysis suggests that collaborative adaptive management implemented by the MBG has aligned with their goals, but changing climate, water availability, and demography will become increasingly challenging.}, keywords = {big data, fire, plant production, ranch turnover, rangeland-cropland conversion, sustainability}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rama.2021.03.002}, url = {files/bibliography/21-012.pdf}, author = {Brandon T Bestelmeyer and S. Spiegal and Winkler, Rich and D. K. James and Matthew Levi and Jebediah C. Williamson} } @article {JRN54559, title = {The Land-Potential Knowledge System (LandPKS): mobile apps and collaboration for optimizing climate change investments}, journal = {Ecosystem Health and Sustainability}, volume = {2}, year = {2016}, month = {03/2016}, chapter = {e01209}, abstract = {

Massive investments in climate change mitigation and adaptation are projected during coming decades.\  Many of these investments will seek to modify how land is managed. The return on both types of investments can be increased through an understanding of land potential: the potential of the land to support primary production and ecosystem services, and its resilience. A Land-Potential Knowledge System (LandPKS) is being developed and implemented to provide individual users with point-based estimates of land potential based on the integration of simple, geo-tagged user inputs with cloud-based information and knowledge. This system will rely on mobile phones for knowledge and information exchange, and use cloud computing to integrate, interpret, and access relevant knowledge and information, including local knowledge about land with similar potential. The system will initially provide management options based on long-term land potential, which depends on climate, topography, and relatively static soil properties, such as soil texture, depth, and mineralogy. Future modules will provide more specific management information based on the status of relatively dynamic soil properties such as organic matter and nutrient content, and of weather. The paper includes a discussion of how this system can be used to help distinguish between meteorological and edaphic drought.

}, keywords = {agriculture, analytics, crowdsourcing, expert systems, extension, knowledge management, land evaulation, land-use planning, mobile apps, sustainability, sustainable land managemen}, doi = {10.1002/ehs2.1209}, url = {/files/bibliography/16-007.pdf}, author = {Jeffrey E. Herrick and Beh, Adam and Barrios, E. and Coetzee, M and Bouvier, I. and Dent, D. and Emile H. Elias and Hengl, T. and Jason W. Karl and H. Liniger and Matuszak, John and Nudungu, L. and Obersteiner, M. and Shephers, K. and K.C. Urama and van der Bosch, R. and Nicholas Webb} } @article {JRN54393, title = {Strategies to alleviate poverty and grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia: Intensification vs production efficiency of livestock}, journal = {Journal of Environmental Management}, volume = {152}, year = {2015}, month = {04/2015}, pages = {177-182}, chapter = {177}, abstract = {

Semi-nomadic pastoralism was replaced by sedentary pastoralism in Inner Mongolia during the 1960{\textquoteright}s in response to changes in land use policy and increasing human population. Large increases in numbers of livestock and pastoralist households (11- and 9-fold, respectively) during the past 60 yrs have variously degraded the majority of grasslands in Inner Mongolia (78 M ha) and jeopardize the livelihoods of 24 M human inhabitants. A prevailing strategy for alleviating poverty and grassland degradation emphasizes intensification of livestock production systems to maintain both pastoral livelihoods and large livestock numbers. We consider this strategy unsustainable because maximization of livestock revenue incurs high supplemental feed costs, marginalizes net household income, and promotes larger flock sizes to create a positive feedback loop driving grassland degradation. We offer an alternative strategy that increases both livestock production efficiency and net pastoral income by marketing high quality animal products to an increasing affluent Chinese economy while simultaneously reducing livestock impacts on grasslands. We further caution that this strategy be designed and assessed within a social-ecological framework capable of coordinating market expansion for livestock products, sustainable livestock carrying capacities, modified pastoral perceptions of success, and incentives for ecosystem services to interrupt the positive feedback loop that exists between subsistence pastoralism and grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia.

}, keywords = {Pastoral livelihoods, Pastoralism, Poverty trap, Social-ecolgoical systems, sustainability}, doi = {10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.07.036}, url = {/files/bibliography/15-017.pdf}, author = {D.D. Briske and Mengli Zhao and G. Han and Ziu, Changbai and Kemp, David and Kris Havstad and Walter Willms and Kang, Le and Zhongwu Wang and Jianguo Wu and Han, Xingguo and Bai, Yongfei} } @article {JRN54040, title = {Ecological site-based assessments of wind and water erosion: Informing accelerated soil erosion management in rangelands}, journal = {Ecological Applications}, volume = {24}, year = {2014}, month = {09/2014}, pages = {1405-1420}, chapter = {1405}, abstract = {

This paper explores how soil erosion assessments structured across ecological sites can inform systems for managing accelerated soil erosion in rangelands. We evaluated wind and water erosion rates for five ecological sites in southern New Mexico, USA, using monitoring data and rangeland-specific wind and water erosion models. Our results show that wind and water erosion can be highly variable within and among ecological sites. Plots in shrub-encroached and shrub-dominated states were consistently susceptible to both wind and water erosion. However, grassland plots and plots with a grass-succulent mix had a high indicated susceptibility to wind and water erosion respectively. Vegetation thresholds for controlling erosion are identified that transcend the ecological sites and their respective states. The thresholds define vegetation cover levels at which rapid (exponential) increases in erosion rates begin to occur, suggesting that erosion in the study ecosystem can be effectively controlled when bare ground cover is \<20\% of a site or total ground cover is \>50\%. Similarly, our results show that erosion can be controlled when the cover of canopy interspaces \>50 cm in length reaches ~50\%, the cover of canopy interspaces \>100 cm in length reaches ~35\% or the cover of canopy interspaces \>150 cm in length reaches ~20\%. This process-based understanding can be applied, along with knowledge of the differential sensitivity of vegetation states, to improve erosion management systems. Land use and management activities that alter cover levels such that they cross thresholds, and/or drive vegetation state changes, may increase the susceptibility of sites to erosion. Land use impacts that are constrained within the natural variability of sites should not result in accelerated soil erosion. Evaluating land condition against the erosion thresholds and natural variability of ecological sites will enable improved identification of where and when accelerated soil erosion occurs and the development of practical management solutions.

}, keywords = {accelerated soil erosion, aeolian, agriculture, anthropogenic dust, dryland, land use change, state-and-transisiton models, sustainability, threshold}, url = {/files/bibliography/14-027.pdf}, author = {Nicholas Webb and Jeffrey E. Herrick and Danielle Duni} } @conference {50458, title = {An agenda for ecology in an era of globalization}, booktitle = {Ecological Society of America Abstracts}, number = {Paper No. 60558}, year = {2006}, month = {August 8, 2006}, address = {Memphis, TN}, abstract = {The relationship between ecological sustainability and human poverty is evolving rapidly in response to changes associated with the globalization of capital, labor, natural resources and knowledge. The processes associated with globalization lead to changes in the scale, patterns and relationships between poverty and environmental degradation. Due to the increased mobility of labor and capital, environmental degradation and opportunities for restoration increasingly appear in areas with relatively little social, environmental and scientific infrastructure, while most ecological investigations remain focused on a limited number of study sites concentrated in the countries of highly developed western economies. At the same time, the increasing globalization of knowledge provides new opportunities for environmental scientists to address these challenges. We propose an agenda for ecology in an era of globalization that includes three changes in the way ecologists work: (1) an increased willingness and ability to rapidly change the focus and the spatial location and scale of our research, (2) development of more flexible funding sources that allow scientists to develop international, interdisciplinary research projects, (3) increased involvement of local knowledge experts and social scientists in all aspects of research design, implementation, interpretation and communication to managers and policymakers.}, keywords = {abstract, abstracts, degradation, ecology, globalization, sustainability}, author = {Jeffrey E. Herrick and Sarukhan, K.} } @inbook {50466, title = {Patterns of net primary production in Chihuahuan desert ecosystems}, booktitle = {Structure and Function of a Chihuahuan Desert Ecosystem: The Jornada Basin Long-Term Ecological Research Site}, year = {2006}, month = {July 1, 2006}, pages = {232-246}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, organization = {Oxford University Press}, chapter = {11}, address = {New York, NY}, abstract = {The Jornada Basin of southern New Mexico has long been an important location for the study of productivity in semidesert ecosystems. Researchers have studied the magnitude and sustainability of plant production since the founding of the USDA Jornada Experimental Range (JER) in 1912. The consistent administration and research focus of the Jornada Experimental Range and of the Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center (CDRRC) have facilitated a number of long-term studies of vegetation dynamics and productivity. These long-term datasets are especially critical for understanding semiarid ecosystems, where interannual and decadal scale variation in climate is so great and where plant performance is so strongly constrained by the physical environment. Long-term data, including the net primary productivity data that are the focus of this chapter, are also essential for understanding the progression or, rather, degradation of ecosystem structure that has been called desertification.}, keywords = {1912, magnitude, plant, production, productivity, sustainability}, url = {/files/bibliography/06-062.pdf}, author = {L. Huenneke and W. H. Schlesinger}, editor = {Kris Havstad and L. Huenneke and W. H. Schlesinger} } @article {50515, title = {Rangeland research: strategies for providing sustainability and stewardship to the rangelands of the world}, journal = {Rangelands}, volume = {28}, number = {6}, year = {2006}, month = {December 2006}, pages = {7-14}, abstract = {Rangeland research is an important determinant of how rangelands are and will be used. Although larger external forces such as national and global economies and social and political attitudes have direct impact on uses of rangelands, the methods by which we implement and evaluate those economic and social priorities are based in research and development. Decisions made by rangeland scientists and their institutions today about priorities will have a definite and profound influence on the management of our rangelands in the future. The Society for Range Management, in a once-a-decade symposium, examines the current state of the science, existing technologies and changing social and political trends to identify research needs. In 2005, SRM brought together over 2 dozen speakers and 100 participants to examine new directions in rangeland use and management and propose changes to research that will provide decision-makers at all levels the necessary tools to set goals, implement management and monitor performance.}, keywords = {management, rangelands, sustainability, vegetation}, url = {http://www.srmjournals.org/archive/1551-501X/28/6/pdf/i1551-501X-28-6-7.pdf}, author = {Vavra, J. and Joel R. Brown} } @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} }