Vegetational Changes on a Semidesert Grassland Range from 1858 to      1963

Buffington, Lee C.; Herbel, Carlton H.

doi:10.2307/1948415

Cited by 535 publications

(444 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…However, soils in bare areas showed a significantly greater amount of C 31 and significantly lower ratio values (p < 0.05). This result was of high importance, supporting the largely anecdotal evidence that shrub dominated the areas across the basin study area that is used to be dominated by grasses [Buffington and Herbel, 1965]. At the Los Piños sites, due to the similarities between grama grass and juniper n-alkane signatures, there was a degree of difficulty in determining between sources; based upon n-alkane signature, a problem was previously experienced when using n-alkane signatures alone [Marschner et al, 2008;Gocke et al, 2011].…”

Section: Change In the Source Of C Over Vegetation Transitionssupporting

confidence: 64%

“…At the SNWR (Figure 1), as with the observed encroachment across the southwestern U.S., evidence suggests that human settlement over the last 150 years caused the current episode of change, attributed primarily to grassland degradation by cattle grazing and fire suppression, between 1936and 1973[U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2014, exacerbated by periods of drought [Buffington and Herbel, 1965;Peters et al, 2006;Van Auken, 2009]. Aerial photos provide evidence for the enlargement of woody clusters into grasslands [Gosz, 1992], and biogeochemical studies suggest the previous presence of grasslands in areas now dominated by woody vegetation [Turnbull et al, 2008b;Puttock et al, 2012].…”

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Woody plant encroachment into grasslands leads to accelerated erosion of previously stable organic carbon from dryland soils

et al. 2014

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Drylands worldwide are experiencing rapid and extensive environmental change, concomitant with the encroachment of woody vegetation into grasslands. Woody encroachment leads to changes in both the structure and function of dryland ecosystems and has been shown to result in accelerated soil erosion and loss of soil nutrients. Covering 40% of the terrestrial land surface, dryland environments are of global importance, both as a habitat and a soil carbon store. Relationships between environmental change, soil erosion, and the carbon cycle are uncertain. There is a clear need to further our understanding of dryland vegetation change and impacts on carbon dynamics. Here two grass-to-woody ecotones that occur across large areas of the southwestern United States are investigated. This study takes a multidisciplinary approach, combining ecohydrological monitoring of structure and function and a dual-proxy biogeochemical tracing approach using the unique natural biochemical signatures of the vegetation. Results show that following woody encroachment, not only do these drylands lose significantly more soil and organic carbon via erosion but that this includes significant amounts of legacy organic carbon which would previously have been stable under grass cover. Results suggest that these dryland soils may not act as a stable organic carbon pool, following encroachment and that accelerated erosion of carbon, driven by vegetation change, has important implications for carbon dynamics.

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Section: Change In the Source Of C Over Vegetation Transitionssupporting

confidence: 64%

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 94%

Woody plant encroachment into grasslands leads to accelerated erosion of previously stable organic carbon from dryland soils

et al. 2014

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“…Identifying the relative importance of these individual factors is challenging because interactions among them may be strong (Archer 1994). Furthermore, historical records of vegetation change are limited (Buffington and Herbel 1965;Gibbens and others 2005), making it difficult to determine whether woody encroachment has occurred in a continuous but gradual manner or rapidly during intermittent events such as severe drought.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Spatial Patterns of Soil Moisture on the Grass and Shrub Responses to a Summer Rainstorm in a Chihuahuan Desert Ecotone

Pockman

Small

2010

Ecosystems

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The cycling of surface water, energy, nutrients, and carbon is different between semiarid grassland and shrubland ecosystems. Although differences are evident when grasslands are compared to shrublands, the processes that contribute to this transition are more challenging to document. We evaluate how surface redistribution of precipitation and plant responses to the resulting infiltration patterns could contribute to the changes that occur during the transition from grassland to shrubland. We measured soil water potential under grasses (Bouteloua eriopoda), shrubs (Larrea tridentata) and bare soil and changes in plant water relations and gas exchange following a 15 mm summer storm in the grasslandshrubland ecotone at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico USA. Following the storm, soil water potential (W s ) increased to 30 cm depth beneath both grass and shrub canopies, with the greatest change observed in the top 15 cm of the soil. The increase in W s was greater beneath grass canopies than beneath shrub canopies. W s under bare soil increased only to 5 cm depth. The substantial redistribution of rainfall and different rooting depths of the vegetation resulted in high W s throughout most of the rooting volume of the grasses whereas soil moisture was unchanged throughout a large portion of the shrub rooting volume. Consistent with this pattern, predawn water potential (W PD ) of grasses increased more than 5 MPa to greater than -1 MPa whereas W PD of shrubs increased to -2.5 MPa, a change of less than 2 MPa. Transpiration increased roughly linearly with W PD in both grasses and shrubs. In grasses, assimilation was strongly correlated with W PD whereas there was no relationship in shrubs where assimilation showed no significant response to the pulse of soil moisture following the storm. These data show that preferential redistribution of water to grass canopies enhances transpiration and assimilation by grasses following large summer storms. This process may inhibit shrubland expansion at the ecotone during periods without extreme drought.

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“…One form of land 58 degradation in the southwestern USA is the invasion of native grasslands by woody shrubs 59 (Buffington and Herbel, 1965;Schlesinger et al, 1990). It is well established that vegetation 60 in semi-arid and arid areas has the potential to transition rapidly from one vegetation state 61 to another; a transition that is not easily reversible on human timescales (Westoby et al 62 1989; Laycock, 1991; Lockwood and Lockwood, 1993;Scheffer and Carpenter, 2003a).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The sites chosen for this study are located in the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge (SNWR) 139 in central New Mexico, USA (34°19' N, 106°42' W) which is situated at the northern margin 140 of the Chihuahuan desert, and is a transition zone between four major biomes: the Great Buffington and Herbel, 1965). This vegetation change has been accompanied by a shift in 157 ecosystem structure at the landscape level (Cross and Schlesinger, 1999 …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Biotic and Abiotic Changes in Ecosystem Structure over a Shrub-Encroachment Gradient in the Southwestern USA

et al. 2010

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Vegetational Changes on a Semidesert Grassland Range from 1858 to 1963

Abstract: History of Livestock Use. Procedures Vegetation categories .. Species composition classes. 1858 Survey. 1915 Survey 1928 Survey. 1963 Survey. Vegetation map analysis EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Vegetation Types Area with no mesquite, tarbush, or creosotebush (O). Mesquite (1).

Cited by 535 publications

References 19 publications

Woody plant encroachment into grasslands leads to accelerated erosion of previously stable organic carbon from dryland soils

Woody plant encroachment into grasslands leads to accelerated erosion of previously stable organic carbon from dryland soils

The Influence of Spatial Patterns of Soil Moisture on the Grass and Shrub Responses to a Summer Rainstorm in a Chihuahuan Desert Ecotone

Biotic and Abiotic Changes in Ecosystem Structure over a Shrub-Encroachment Gradient in the Southwestern USA

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