Assessing vegetation recovery from energy development using a dynamic reference approach.

Autor: Monroe AP; U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA.; Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory Colorado State University, in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA., Nauman TW; U.S. Geological Survey Southwest Biological Science Center Moab Utah USA., Aldridge CL; U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA.; Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory Colorado State University, in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA., O'Donnell MS; U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA.; Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory Colorado State University, in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA., Duniway MC; U.S. Geological Survey Southwest Biological Science Center Moab Utah USA., Cade BS; U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA., Manier DJ; U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA., Anderson PJ; U.S. Geological Survey Fort Collins Science Center Fort Collins Colorado USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Ecology and evolution [Ecol Evol] 2022 Feb 17; Vol. 12 (2), pp. e8508. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 Feb 17 (Print Publication: 2022).
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8508
Abstrakt: Ecologically relevant references are useful for evaluating ecosystem recovery, but references that are temporally static may be less useful when environmental conditions and disturbances are spatially and temporally heterogeneous. This challenge is particularly acute for ecosystems dominated by sagebrush ( Artemisia spp.), where communities may require decades to recover from disturbance. We demonstrated application of a dynamic reference approach to studying sagebrush recovery using three decades of sagebrush cover estimates from remote sensing (1985-2018). We modelled recovery on former oil and gas well pads ( n  = 1200) across southwestern Wyoming, USA, relative to paired references identified by the Disturbance Automated Reference Toolset. We also used quantile regression to account for unmodelled heterogeneity in recovery, and projected recovery from similar disturbance across the landscape. Responses to weather and site-level factors often differed among quantiles, and sagebrush recovery on former well pads increased more when paired reference sites had greater sagebrush cover. Little (<5%) of the landscape was projected to recover within 100 years for low to mid quantiles, and recovery often occurred at higher elevations with cool and moist annual conditions. Conversely, 48%-78% of the landscape recovered quickly (within 25 years) for high quantiles of sagebrush cover. Our study demonstrates advantages of using dynamic reference sites when studying vegetation recovery, as well as how additional inferences obtained from quantile regression can inform management.
Competing Interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare.
(© Published 2022. This article is a U.S.Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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