[APWG] FIRE 11 Vegetation as fuel and ecosystem dysfunction Re:NEWS: In fire country, land managers struggle to fight cheatgrass

Tue Feb 8 01:44:20 CST 2011

Based on 25 years of observation on some native grasslands here in northern 
Utah, I have a hypothesis that cryptobiotic crust development in 
undisturbed, arid grasslands inhibits annual weed invasion by supression of 
nitrifying bacteria which, with disturbance, create nitrates rathern than 
ammonia from stored soil organic N.  This is called Biological Nitrification 
Inhibition (BNI).  It is well understood by agronomists but not by 
ecologists.  I think that cheatgrass and other fall-germinating, disturbance 
annual weeds depend on rapid nitrate releases, rather than slow releases of 
ammonia from stored organic N.  The availability of soil nitrate in a 
disturbance regime may  help explain rapid weed seedling growth when the 
"tight" community of perennial grasses and forbs  is altered or removed.  I 
need some of these young enquiring minds out there to test this hypothesis. 
Dr. Ty Harrison
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wayne Tyson" <landrest at cox.net>
To: "Ty Harrison" <tyju at xmission.com>; <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: [APWG] FIRE 11 Vegetation as fuel and ecosystem dysfunction 
Re:NEWS: In fire country, land managers struggle to fight cheatgrass


> What really gets me is the deafening silence from all but the emeriti . . 
> .
> Not even a challenge to my heresy! It will be interesting to see if there
> are any young minds out there willing to challenge authority . . .
>
> Healthy ecosystems tend to exclude weeds, and in Utah especially and arid
> environments in particular, the most important index of a healthy 
> ecosystem
> is the presence of a cryptogamic soil crust community, one easily spaded 
> up
> by oversize-hoofed, drag-footed, bovines that did not evolve in that
> habitat.
>
> Site specific protocols are possible, but not directly applicable in other
> contexts (which can be mere feet or ridges away from such sites). Such
> protocols should be flexible, based on feeback, carrying capacity, and
> modulating population fluctuations rather than boom-bust cycles, 
> extinction,
> or excesses--that is, efficiently, much as Nature does it, only more so.
>
> Regarding early 19th century biologists--they did a lot more with less and
> stuck to the subject far better than today's 90-day wonders.
>
> WT
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Ty Harrison" <tyju at xmission.com>
> To: "Wayne Tyson" <landrest at cox.net>; <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 1:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [APWG] FIRE 11 Vegetation as fuel and ecosystem dysfunction
> Re:NEWS: In fire country, land managers struggle to fight cheatgrass
>
>
>>I couldn't agree more with Wayne Tyson's assessment that grazing in the
>>arid
>> West is the "elephant in the room".  As Walter P. Cottam, Utah's early
>> ecologist observed in his now famous 1947publication:  "Is Utah Sahara
>> Bound?" (4 copies are available at Abebooks.com), the west's past,
>> uncontrolled, over-grazing history is clearly the source of all 
>> Cheatgrass
>> and other weedy evils.  Let's call a spade a spade.  The challenge is to
>> develop site-specific protocols for arid grassland restorations which can
>> exclude weeds.  I don't know if grazing can ever be compatible in these
>> fragile, low precipitation environments.   Dr. Ty Harrison, Emeritus
>> Professor of Biology, Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Wayne Tyson" <landrest at cox.net>
>> To: <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 8:08 PM
>> Subject: [APWG] FIRE 11 Vegetation as fuel and ecosystem dysfunction
>> Re:NEWS: In fire country, land managers struggle to fight cheatgrass
>>
>>
>>> While all that stuff is true, it is nothing new, but the elephant in the
>>> room is embodied in the term "range." Like motherhood, the romantic 
>>> ideal
>>> of
>>> cowboys and cattle is a subject to be avoided. That's where the problem
>>> came
>>> from, and that's core variable that ensures that it will persist.
>>> Cheatgrass
>>> will never be gone, but until the cattle are gone, it will remain a 
>>> major
>>> component of what's left of the ecosystem that evolved under a different
>>> kind of grazing/browsing pressure than cattle provide. The simple
>>> inconvenient truth is that ecosystems are a product of everything that 
>>> is
>>> going on, and cattle are the primary cultivators of cheatgrass and the
>>> other
>>> components of the altered ecosystem that is the Intermountain West.
>>>
>>> WT
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> From: "Olivia Kwong" <plant at plantconservation.org>
>>> To: <apwg at lists.plantconservation.org>
>>> Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 6:36 AM
>>> Subject: [APWG] NEWS: In fire country,land managers struggle to fight
>>> cheatgrass
>>>
>>>
>>>> http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/03/2048524/in-fire-country-land-managers.html
>>>>
>>>> In fire country, land managers struggle to fight cheatgrass
>>>> By PATRICK ORR
>>>> McClatchy Newspapers
>>>>
>>>> BOISE, Idaho -- Cheatgrass can be a dirty word for land managers in the
>>>> West.
>>>>
>>>> Sure, they marvel at the invasive species' toughness and respect its
>>>> stubborn ability to muscle out native bunch grasses of the desert of
>>>> southwest Idaho and other areas of the West. But cheatgrass is also the
>>>> main reason why much of the arid lands of the West are so susceptible 
>>>> to
>>>> unnaturally devastating range fires.
>>>>
>>>> See the link above for the full article text.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> APWG at lists.plantconservation.org
>>>> http://lists.plantconservation.org/mailman/listinfo/apwg_lists.plantconservation.org
>>>>
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>>>> opinion of the individual posting the message.
>>>
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