On Beyond Reason: Homesteading in the California Desert, 1885-1940

Norris, Frank

doi:10.2307/41171010

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…of mining communities and settlements. Homesteading began in the early 1900s and continued into the 20th century (JRP Historical Consulting Service 1997;Norris 1982). In the 21st century, human settlements and towns have bordered the study area, with the largest population of 20,000 people within 1.4 km of the northern boundary of the study area.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Uncertain Future for a Population of Desert Tortoises Experiencing Human Impacts

et al. 2020

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Uncertain Future for a Population of Desert Tortoises Experiencing Human Impacts

et al. 2020

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“…Land has continually moved from federal to private status in the vicinity of existing developments, thus supporting growth of settlements and cities in such areas as the southwestern Mojave Desert, along the Mojave and Colorado rivers, and in Las Vegas Valley (e.g., US Department of the Interior, BLM, 1980;Norris, 1982). In the 1990s and early 2000s, a significant block of private land in remote areas, primarily land belonging to the railroads, also was transferred into the federal sector and into wilderness.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to the special issue on the changing Mojave Desert

Berry

Murphy

Mack

et al. 2006

Journal of Arid Environments

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Biophysical factors control invasive annual grass hot spots in the Mojave Desert

et al. 2023

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Invasive annual grasses can promote ecosystem state changes and habitat loss in the American Southwest. Non-native annual grasses such as Bromus spp. and Schismus spp. have invaded the Mojave Desert and degraded habitat through increased fire occurrence, severity, and shifting plant community composition. Thus, it is important to identify and characterize the areas where persistent invasion has occurred, identifying where subsequent habitat degradation has increased. Previous plot and landscape-scale analyses have revealed anthropogenic and biophysical correlates with the establishment and dominance of invasive annual grasses in the Mojave Desert. However, these studies have been limited in spatial and temporal scales. Here we use Landsat imagery validated using an extensive network of plot data to map persistent and productive populations of invasive annual grass, called hot spots, across the entire Mojave Desert ecoregion over 12 years (2009–2020). We also identify important variables for predicting hot spot distribution using the Random Forest algorithm and identifying the most invaded subregions. We identified hot spots in over 5% of the Mojave Desert mostly on the western and eastern edges of the ecoregion, and invasive grasses were detected in over 90% of the Mojave Desert at least once in that time. Across the entire Mojave Desert, our results indicate that soil texture, aspect, winter precipitation, and elevation are the highest-ranking predictive variables of invasive grass hot spots, while anthropogenic variables contributed the least to the accuracy of the predictive model. The total area covered by hot spots varied significantly among subregions of the Mojave Desert. We found that anthropogenic variables became more important in explaining invasive annual establishment and persistence as spatial scale was reduced to the subregional level. Our findings have important implications for informing where land management actions can prioritize reducing invasive annual persistence and promoting restoration efforts.

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On Beyond Reason: Homesteading in the California Desert, 1885-1940

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

An Uncertain Future for a Population of Desert Tortoises Experiencing Human Impacts

An Uncertain Future for a Population of Desert Tortoises Experiencing Human Impacts

Introduction to the special issue on the changing Mojave Desert

Biophysical factors control invasive annual grass hot spots in the Mojave Desert

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