Thinking Like a Grassland: Challenges and Opportunities for Biodiversity Conservation in the Great Plains of North America

Tracking Cumulative Cropland Expansion across the Great Plains: The Plowprint

“…More recently, Augustine et al (2019) found that land cover accuracy for 12 historical grassland and savanna communities in the United States Great Plains increased through implementation of a two-year requirement for crop identifi cation (i.e., pixels that were classifi ed as cropland for only one year of the seven-year study period were considered misclassifi ed) and a minimum area fi lter where contiguous clusters of 10 or fewer cropland pixels (0.9 ha) were reclassifi ed as non-crop. Th ough Augustine et al 's (2019) methods were intended to locate and quantify existing grassland, as compared to the focus of the plowprint on identifying historically plowed lands and the complementary remaining intact habitat, the methods employed easily translate to improvements in the plowprint methodology.…”

A multispecies approach to manage effects of land cover and weather on upland game birds

“…Grasslands included both native grasslands and cropland removed from production and converted back to grassland under the CRP (Spencer et al., 2017). Native grasses included short (e.g., Bouteloua dactyloides and B. gracilis ), mixed (e.g., B. dactyloides , B. gracilis , B. curtipendula , Andropogon gerardii , Panicum virgatum , Schizachyrium scoparium , Sporobolus compositus , and Sorghastrum nutans ), and tall grasses (e.g., A. gerardii, P. virgatum, S. nutans ) along a west‐to‐east precipitation gradient (Figure 1b; Augustine et al., 2019; Kuchler, 1964). CRP lands contained a variety of native, mixed‐grass species, as well as Old World Bluestems ( Bothriochloa spp.)…”

“…Distribution of route locations from annual count surveys conducted by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism in Kansas for lesser and greater prairie chickens (LEPC & GRPC), northern bobwhites (NOBO), and ring‐necked pheasants (RNEP) conducted across (a) land cover (created with data from U.S. Geological Survey, 2014) and (b) potential natural vegetation (created with data from Kuchler, 1964, grassland classes summarized based on Augustine et al., 2019)…”

“…Native grasses included short (e.g., Bouteloua dactyloides and B. gracilis), mixed (e.g., B. dactyloides, B. gracilis, B. curtipendula, Andropogon gerardii, Panicum virgatum, Schizachyrium scoparium, Sporobolus compositus, and Sorghastrum nutans), and tall grasses (e.g., A. gerardii, P. virgatum, S. nutans) along a west-to-east precipitation gradient ( Figure 1b; Augustine et al, 2019;Kuchler, 1964 (Pitman, 2014). Time of day, survey period, listening duration, and route length varied between species (Table 1).…”

“…For many native grassland specialist species, these losses are a result of anthropogenic‐driven habitat loss. As agriculture became more prevalent and intensified in the Great Plains, vast areas of grasslands were converted to croplands and much of the remaining grasslands were intensively grazed (Augustine et al., 2019). This conversion of land cover paired with practices such as pesticide use, intensive unmanaged grazing, invasive plants, declining nutritional quality, and inappropriate burning tactics led to changes in the landscape that negatively affected both habitat quantity and quality for grassland birds (Samson et al., 2004).…”