Research PapersInvertebrate Community Response to a Shifting Mosaic of Habitat
Section snippets
INTRODUCTION
Little remains of the North American Great Plains ecosystem once maintained by the interaction of fire and grazing herbivores. Grassland fragments and management practices that result in homogenous landscapes reduce the ecological value of remaining prairie (Coppedge et al. 2001; Fuhlendorf and Engle 2001). In contrast, heterogeneity, which links pattern in landscapes to ecological processes, should serve as the foundation for conservation and ecosystem management (Pickett et al. 2003).
Study Area and Experimental Design
The study area is located on the Oklahoma State University Research Range, which has its headquarters (lat 36°3′N; long 97°13′W) about 21 km southwest of Stillwater, Oklahoma. The climate is continental with an average frost-free growing period of 204 d extending from April to October. Average annual precipitation is 831 mm with 65% as rain coming from May to October, and mean annual temperature is 15°C with average daily minimum of -4.3°C in January and average daily maximum of 34°C in August.
RESULTS
Variation in vegetation between treatments and among patches within the Patch Burn pastures reflected different stages of recovery as a function of TSB (Table 1). Within Patch Burn pastures, forb cover peaked in current burned patches and in transitional patches whereas current burned patches contained about 20 times more bare ground than Traditional pastures (Table 1). Litter cover varied by almost a factor of four between current burned patches in Patch Burn pastures and Traditional pastures,
DISCUSSION
Consistent with the fire–grazing interaction model (Fuhlendorf and Engle 2001) and verifying the prediction we hypothesized, invertebrate community composition and invertebrate mass were sensitive to habitat heterogeneity provided by patch burning. As compared to the Traditional pastures, patches within Patch Burn pastures differed in invertebrate mass and the compositional contributions by various orders of invertebrates on the basis of time since burning and focal grazing. The response of
MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS
The shifting mosaic created by the Patch Burn treatment provides habitat that meets requirements for a broad range of invertebrate species. Allowing 2 yr for recovery from fire, patch burning is compatible with conservation of invertebrate biodiversity of rangeland, and therefore presents a potentially useful tool for managing prairie with fire and grazing to achieve an array of management objectives (e.g., sustainable livestock grazing enterprises, controlling woody plant invasion, and
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank John Wier, Timothy Tunnell, Chris Stansberry, and Chad Cummings for contributing to treatment application and for collecting vegetation data. Don Arnold's help with identification of invertebrates made this work possible.
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This research was funded by the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station through project S-1822 and USDA-NRI Managed Ecosystems Program (02-00777). This article is published with the approval of the Director, Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station.
At the time of the research, the senior author was Regents Professor, Dept of Plant and Soil Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA.