Weed Science Commons^™

Exploring The Seed Bank Dynamics Of Red Brome: Longevity, Density, And Relationship To Fire, Benjamin S. Jurand

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research explores several untested aspects of the seed bank characteristics of red brome (Bromus rubens), an invasive annual grass in southwestern United States arid lands. Red brome is a formidable competitor to native plant species, both annual and perennial alike, and produces many seeds that germinate easily. The stalks of red brome contribute continuous-cover fuel loads that facilitate wildfires destructive to mature native Mojave Desert plant communities. This makes it a priority species for land managers, particularly when dealing with recovery after fire.

This project addressed questions related to the longevity of red brome seeds in soil seed banks …

Relationships Of Exotic Plant Invasions With Biological Soil Crust, Desert Pavement, And Soil Carbon In The Eastern Mojave Desert, Adria Decorte

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In a matter of 50 years, exotic annual plants have become widespread in the Mojave Desert, contributing to drastic landscape changes such as those caused by recent fires. Invasions by exotics threaten native Mojave Desert plant communities by altering community functions (e.g. fire regimes) and by reducing plant diversity. Because it is not practical, or even possible, to eradicate these exotics, developing effective prevention techniques is the key to controlling these invasions.

This thesis used a greenhouse experiment, a field experiment, and a correlational field study to examine the affect soil surface types have on the establishment of three exotic …

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Spring 2011, Scott R. Abella, Ross Guida, S. D. Smith, Christopher L. Roberts, Haroon Stephen, William J. Smith, Zhongwei Liu, James S. Holland, Aurore Giguet

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes

Red brome distribution in the eastern Mojave Desert, A look at the UNLV xeric gardens and Marjorie Barrick museum, Summary of recent science synthesis efforts

Revegetating Burned Arid Lands: Identifying Successful Native Species Using Trait And Competition Analysis: Final Report, Scott R. Abella

Fire Science

Species selection can make the difference between successful revegetation projects and costly failures. Candidate native species for revegetating burned arid lands in the southwestern United States must meet at least two criteria. These species must: (1) be competitive in postfire environments typically dominated by exotic grasses, and (2) be able to become established reliably by seeding or planting. In response to Manager’s Request Task 3 (reestablishment of native vegetation after fires on arid lands) in the 2006 JFS announcement for proposals, this research tackled the problem of selecting native species with the greatest chance of revegetation success by conducting synergistic …

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Fall 2010, Adria Decorte, Sharon Altman, Alex Suazo

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes

Adria DeCorte defense, Mojave desert inventory and monitoring mapping project, effect of burial depth on Brassica tournefortii seeds

Joint Fire Science Program – Lake Mead National Recreation Area Revegetating Burned Arid Lands: Identifying Successful Native Species Using Trait And Competition Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, Time Period: July 1 — September 30, 2010, Margaret N. Rees

Fire Science

• Article entitled “Competitive Hierarchy of Native Desert Plants with Red Brome (Bromus rubens): Towards Identifying Invasion-Reducing Species" was revised and re-submitted to the Invasive Plant Science and Management journal.
• Final data collection on soils and nursery plots is complete. Data are awaiting analysis.

Joint Fire Science Program – Lake Mead National Recreation Area Revegetating Burned Arid Lands: Identifying Successful Native Species Using Trait And Competition Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, Time Period: May 1 — June 30, 2010, Margaret N. Rees

Fire Science

• Article entitled “Competitive Hierarchy of Native Desert Plants with Red Brome (Bromus rubens): Towards Identifying Invasion-Reducing Species" was submitted to the Invasive Plant Science and Management journal.
• Maintained nursery plots and added installment of nitrogen treatment.
• Took measurements in nursery (competition) plots and harvested biomass.

Joint Fire Science Program – Lake Mead National Recreation Area Revegetating Burned Arid Lands: Identifying Successful Native Species Using Trait And Competition Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, Time Period: January 1 — April 30, 2010, Margaret N. Rees

Fire Science

• Article entitled “Competitive Hierarchy of Native Desert Plants with Red Brome (Bromus rubens): Towards Identifying Invasion-Reducing Species" was submitted to the Invasive Plant Science and Management journal
• Maintained nursery plots and added installment of nitrogen treatment.
• Took measurements in nursery (competition) plots and harvested biomass.

Assessing Invasive Plant Species As Threats In Mojave Desert Parks, Sara L. Mcpherson, Donovan J. Craig, Scott R. Abella

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)

The invasion and persistence of exotic plant species threatens the natural features that national parks are designed to protect. For example, park managers have witnessed an increase in the frequency, extent and intensity of fires along with a reduction in native species richness and diversity. Many park managers are familiar with a suite of highly invasive plants, but lack a comprehensive and systematic way of prioritizing invasive plant species based on potential threats to the parks’ resources. We have entered into a collaborative project with the National Park Service’s Inventory and Monitoring program to develop an invasive plant early detection …

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Spring 2010, Anna San, Donovan J. Craig, Lindsay P. Chiquoine, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel, Christina L. Lund, Jessica E. Spencer, Edward P. Weber Ph.D, Jill E. Craig

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes

Seed removal rates of Sahara mustard by rodents and ants, Mojave Desert Network exotic invasive inventory, gypsum roadside disturbance restoration update, new paper out on post-fire plant establishment, UNLV establishes school of environmental and public affairs

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Vegetation Monitoring And Analysis: Final Project Report, Scott R. Abella, Margaret N. Rees

Vegetation Monitoring

Vegetation Monitoring and Analysis at Lake Mead National Recreation Area (NRA) was funded by the Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan, Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, and Lake Mead NRA base-funds. This Cooperative Task Agreement was awarded to the Public Lands Institute (PLI) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) on September 30, 2006 with the term ending December 31, 2009, as modified. The primary purpose of this Task Agreement was to work within an interagency framework towards the accomplishment of three main vegetation management objectives. These three goals were to: (1) inventory, research …

Research Poster: Physiological Responses Of Two Invasive Annual Grasses, Cheatgrass And Red Brome, In The Great Basin, L. Hernandez, R. Nowak, L. Salto

2010 Annual Nevada NSF EPSCoR Climate Change Conference

Research poster

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Winter 2010, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes

Native species interactions with red brome (Bromus rubens), undergraduate and graduate programs at UNLV, what’s growing in the greenhouse?

Trying To Beat The Brome: Understanding Establishment Thresholds And Choosing Competitive Native Species At Parashant National Monument, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Desert fires fueled by exotic grasses like the omnipresent red brome (Bromus rubens) can be intense and cause widespread mortality of native vegetation. Native desert scrub communities such as those dominated by blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima) do not readily reestablish after fire (Abella 2009) and may even become more abundant in the post-burn landscape initiating a fire cycle that occurs at a greater frequency than the recovery time of the long-lived desert perennial community.

Native Species Interactions With Red Brome: Suggestions For Burn-Area Revegetation, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

In deserts, native perennial plants often actually facilitate the establishment of exotic annual grasses. One of our focal areas of research is to identify native species for use in revegetation projects that reduce the establishment of exotic annual grasses, or at least do not strongly facilitate exotic species establishment. An initial research effort involving a competition experiment of red brome with native species and a correlational field study of brome distribution among native perennial plants is in press with the journal Invasive Plant Science and Management.

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Fall 2009, Tom Monaco, Scott R. Abella, Amber Lee, James E. Deacon

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes

USDA working to manage invasive annual grasses, effects of heat and smoke on red brome soil seed bank, how burial depth and substrate affect germination of Sahara mustard and red brome, environmental effects of the southern Nevada groundwater project

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Vegetation Monitoring And Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, July 1, 2009 To September 30, 2009, Margaret N. Rees

Vegetation Monitoring

Executive Summary

• Weed Sentry staff surveyed over 55 miles and 311 acres (most of which was conducted by foot) this quarter.
• Planning for future Brassica tournefortii research projects has been implemented through collaboration between PLI and NPS staff.
• Preliminary results from ongoing Brassica tournefortii projects indicate little effect of disturbance on abundance of the species, but, as expected, the species benefitted with increased water availability
• Rare plant data monitoring and data entry for this season is complete.
• Pre-planning activities for the upcoming Northshore Road restoration plantings and evaluation were initiated.
• Gypsum restoration research is ongoing, data are being analyzed and …

Heat And Smoke Effects On Red Brome Soil Seed Banks, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Management of exotic plants that are annuals entails understanding and managing their soil seed banks. We completed a study of the influences of heat and liquid smoke on red brome (Bromus rubens) soil seed banks collected from Red Rock Canyon in southern Nevada as part of a collaborative fire effects monitoring effort with Bureau of Land Management - Las Vegas. We collected the samples from the 2005 Loop Fire, where we observed in a monitoring field study that exotic grasses such as red brome were relatively sparse in the first 2-3 years (which were during a dry period) following the …

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Vegetation Monitoring And Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, April 1, 2009 To June 30, 2009, Margaret N. Rees

Vegetation Monitoring

Executive Summary

• The Weed Sentry program surveyed over 187 miles (1,342 acres) of federal land by vehicle and foot in Clark County for incipient populations of exotic plants.
• Weed Sentry staff continue to survey never before surveyed sites, and trails and regions within Upper Las Vegas Wash CTA and Sloan Canyon NCA as requested by BLM managers
• In 2009 rare plant monitoring was completed. Data entry and analysis are in progress.

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes Spring 2009, Russell Scofield, Michele Slaton Ph.D, Alexis Suazo, Donovan J. Craig

Mojave Applied Ecology Notes

California desert managers group, vegetation monitoring in Death Valley, undergraduate research symposium at UNLV, response of Sahara mustard to water and disturbance, JFS update

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Vegetation Monitoring And Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, January 1, 2009 To March 31, 2009, Margaret N. Rees

Vegetation Monitoring

Executive Summary

• The Weed Sentry program surveyed over 126 miles (981 acres) of federal land by vehicle and foot in Clark County for incipient populations of exotic plants.
• Weed Sentry staff continue to survey never before surveyed sites, and trails and regions within Red Rock and Sloan Canyon NCAs requested by BLM managers.
• The 2009 rare plant monitoring was initiated and in progress.
• Northshore Road reconstruction monitoring was initiated and active monitoring and care of salvaged plants was performed by UNLV staff.
• Rana onca vegetation monitoring and reporting was completed.

Keeping Fountain Grass Out Of The Mojave Desert, Curt Deuser

Lake Mead Science Symposium

Fountain Grass (Pennisetum setaceum) is an escaped ornamental perennial bunchgrass from Africa that has invaded parts of Hawaii and the Sonoran Desert. It is adapted to fire and increases hazardous fuels causing wildfires in areas that may not have historically occurred. It was detected in the late 1990’s within the Mojave Desert at Joshua Tree NP and along the Colorado River corridor on the shores of Lake Mohave. The extent of these populations was limited and a rapid response was necessary to keep it from spreading out of control. If no action is taken then fountain grass would spread by …

Athel (Tamarix Aphylla) And Athel Hybrid (Tamarix Aphyllax Tamarix Ramosissima)Establishment And Control At Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Carrie Norman, Curt Deuser, Joshua Hoines

Lake Mead Science Symposium

Athel is a large evergreen ornamental tree that has been planted throughout the Southwest since the 1950’s. Athel was considered benign because it was thought to produce non-viable seed unlike its invasive relative, tamarisk. However, athel began establishing in the wild from seed on Lake Mead in 1983. Lake Mead NRA has been actively controlling athel since November 2004 along the high water mark of Lake Mead shoreline (439 miles) to prevent it from spreading throughout the Colorado River Drainage. The NPS contracts Nevada Conservation Corp crews and the Lake Mead Exotic Plant Management Team to implement the control efforts …

Early Post-Fire Plant Establishment On A Mojave Desert Burn, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel, Christina L. Lund, Jessica E. Spencer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Fire has become more extensive in recent decades in southwestern United States arid lands. Burned areas pose management challenges and opportunities, and increasing our understanding of post-fire plant colonization may assist management decision-making. We examined plant communities, soils, and soil seed banks two years after the 2005 Loop Fire, located in a creosote-blackbrush community in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in southern Nevada’s Mojave Desert. Based on a spring sampling of 20, 0.01-ha plots, live + dead cover of the exotic annual Bromus rubens averaged nine times lower on the burn than on a paired unburned area. Perennial species …

Progress In Strategic Research Areas, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Three years ago through conversations with resource managers, assessing the status of knowledge of the scientific literature, and our own interests, we set forth several strategic research areas that we believed would be timely for advancing Mojave Desert conservation and management.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Vegetation Monitoring And Analysis: Quarterly Progress Report, October 1, 2008 To December 31, 2008, Margaret N. Rees

Vegetation Monitoring

Executive Summary

• The Weed Sentry program surveyed over 62 miles of federal land by vehicle and foot in Clark County for incipient populations of exotic plants.
• New weed monitoring botanists and botany assistant joined the staff during this period.
• Vegetation staff presented four presentations at the Natural Areas Association annual conference in Nashville, TN and eight poster presentations at the “wildfires and invasive plants in American deserts” meeting in Reno, NV.
• Several new Brassica tournefortii experiments were initiated.

Joint Fire Science Program – Lake Mead National Recreation Area: Revegetating Burned Arid Lands: Identifying Successful Native Species Using Trait And Competition Analysis, Quarterly Progress Report, October 1 — December 31, 2008, Margaret N. Rees

Fire Science

• Presented poster at Natural Areas Conference in Nashville, TN

• Initiated granivory study at Goodsprings.

• Outplanted 2376 plants for Experiment 1 at Lake Mead nursery.

• Presented poster at Wildfires and Invasive Plants in American Deserts conference in Reno, NV.

• Submitted manuscript covering our distance from road - microsite invasibility study to Journal of Arid Environments.

Early Post-Fire Recovery On A Heavily Visited Mojave Desert Burn: Red Rock Canyon Near Las Vegas, Nevada, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel, Christina L. Lund, Jessica E. Spencer

Fire Science Presentations

Wildfire has become widespread in southwestern USA deserts. In a record 2005 fire season in the Mojave Desert, for example, more than 385,000 hectares burned (Brooks and Matchett 2006). This burned area is approximately 3% of the entire Mojave Desert. Fueled in large part by exotic annual grasses, these fires burned desert ecosystems thought to have only burned infrequently historically. Burns now occupy significant portions of desert landscapes, posing prominent management challenges. Improving our understanding of plant recovery on desert burns is important for evaluating future fire hazard, whether natural revegetation will meet management objectives, and for planning active revegetation …

Using A Diverse Seed Mix To Establish Native Plants On A Sonoran Desert Burn, Scott R. Abella, John L. Gunn, Mark L. Daniels, Judith D. Springer, Susan E. Nyoka

Fire Science Presentations

• Revegetating burned areas is a formidable challenge facing resource managers in southwestern United States arid lands.
• Natural revegetation of desert burns by native species may be slow, or dominated by exotic annual grasses that perpetuate a frequent-fire regime.
• Resource managers may have several reasons for actively revegetating burns with native species, such as for providing competition with exotic species, minimizing soil erosion and dust pollution, and improving aesthetics.
• The use of native species in revegetation has been limited by a lack of available seed and by findings that native desert species are difficult to establish (e.g., Bainbridge and Virginia 1990, …

Post-Fire Plant Recovery In The Mojave And Sonoran Deserts Of Western North America, Scott R. Abella, Public Lands Institute, Department Of Environmental Studies, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fire Science Presentations

Fire is thought to have been generally rare historically in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. However, invasion by exotic grasses (e.g., Schismus spp.) has increased fuel continuity, promoting fire in these deserts. Succession and recovery are not well understood processes in deserts, nonetheless for a novel disturbance like fire. In addition to helping build theories of desert succession and recovery, information on post-fire recovery has numerous practical implications (e.g., determining whether active revegetation is needed). Systematic reviews provide a means for obtaining literature using reproducible search criteria. This approach facilitates a balanced appraisal of available information, synthesizes scattered literature, and …