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Ecological Services To And From Rangelands Of The United States, Ed Frederickson, Kris Havstad, Debra Peters, Rhonda Skaggs, Joel Brown, Brandon Bestelmeyer, Jeffrey Herrick, Jack Wright

Ed L. Frederickson

The over 300 million ha of public and private rangelands in the United States are characterized by low and variable precipitation, nutrient-poor soils, and high spatial and temporal variability in plant production. This land type has provided a variety of goods and services, with the provisioning of food and fiber dominating through much of the 20th century. More recently, food production from a rangeland-based livestock industry is often pressured for a variety of reasons, including poor economic returns, increased regulations, an aging rural population, and increasingly diverse interests of land owners. A shift to other provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting …