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Desertification/Bureau Of Land Managment (Blm) Transects At The Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico (1976,1986,1996), Robert Parmenter, Daniel Ryerson

Sevilleta LTER Program Data

Responses of plant communities to mammalian herbivores vary widely, due to variation in plant species composition, herbivore densities, forage preferences, soils, and climate. In this study, we evaluated simultaneous changes in 11 plant assemblages on the 100,000 ha Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR) in central New Mexico, USA, over a 20-yr period following removal of the major mammalian herbivores (livestock and prairie dogs) in 1972-1975. Thirty study sites were established in 1976 within and outside of the SNWR, and these sites were resampled in 1986 and 1996 using line transect methods. At the landscape scale, repeated measures ANOVA of percentage …