Understanding the impact of grazing intensity on grassland production and soil fertility is of fundamental importance for grassland conservation and management. We thus compared three types of alpine steppe management by studying vegetation traits and soil properties in response to three levels of grazing pressure: permanent grazing (M1), seasonal grazing (M2), and grazing exclusion (M3) in the...

The Mongolian Steppe is one of the largest remaining grassland ecosystems. Recent studies have reported widespread decline of vegetation across the steppe and about 70% of this ecosystem is now considered degraded. Among the scientific community there has been an active debate about whether the observed degradation is related to climate, or over-grazing, or both. Here, we employ a new atmospher...

Medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae [L.] Nevski) is an exotic annual grass invading western rangelands. Invasion by medusahead is problematic because it decreases livestock forage production, degrades wildlife habitat, reduces biodiversity, and increases fire frequency. Revegetation of medusahead-invaded sagebrush steppe is needed to increase ecosystem and economic productivity. Most efforts...

Understanding biological invasions patterns and mechanisms is highly needed for forecasting and managing these processes and their negative impacts. At small scales, ecological processes driving plant invasions are expected to produce a spatially explicit pattern driven by propagule pressure and local ground heterogeneity. Our aim was to determine the interplay between the intensity of seed rai...

Background: Monitoring terrestrial vegetation cover condition is important to evaluate its current condition and to identify potential vulnerabilities. Due to simplicity and low cost, point intercept method has been widely used in evaluating grassland surface and quantifying cover conditions. Field-based digital photography method is gaining popularity for the purpose of cover estimate, as it c...

Dramatic events in human prehistory, such as the spread of agriculture to Europe from Anatolia and the late Neolithic/Bronze Age migration from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, can be investigated using patterns of genetic variation among the people who lived in those times. In particular, studies of differing female and male demographic histories on the basis of ancient genomes can provide informati...

1 Departement of Forest Science and Environment, University of Tuscia, Via San Camillo de Lellis, 01100 Viterbo, Italy 2 Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans Knoll Str. 10, 07745, Jena, Germany 3 Sukachev Insitute of Forest, SB-RAS, Akademgorodok, Krasnoyarsk, 660036, Russia Received: 30 October 2006 – Accepted: 5 December 2006 – Published: 29 January 2007 Correspondence to: L. Belell...

Principal Investigators Jeanne C. Chambers, E. Durant McArthur, Steven B. Monson, Susan E. Meyer, Nancy L. Shaw, and Robin J. Tausch – USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station Robert R. Blank – USDA Agricultural Research Station Steve Bunting – University of Idaho Richard R. Miller – Oregon State University Mike Pellant – USDI Bureau of Land Management Bruce A. Roundy – Brigham Youn...