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Biological invasions are one of the greatest threats to native species in natural ecological systems. One of the most successful invasive species is Bromus tectorum L. (cheatgrass), which is having marked impacts on native plant communities and ecosystem processes. However, we know little about the effects of this invasion on native animal species in the Intermountain West. Because ants have been used to detect ecological change associated with anthropogenic land use, they seem well suited for a preliminary evaluation of the consequences of cheatgrass-driven habitat conversion. In our study, we used pitfall traps to assess ant community assemblages in intact sagebrush and nearby cheatgrass-dominated vegetation....
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These data were released prior to the October 1, 2016 effective date for the USGS’s policy dictating the review, approval, and release of scientific data as referenced in USGS Survey Manual Chapter 502.8 Fundamental Science Practices: Review and Approval of Scientific Data for Release. This digital data set defines the boundaries of the deserts of the southwestern United States. Those deserts include the Great Basin, Mojave, Colorado, and Sonoran Deserts as defined by Benson and Darrow (1981). The study by Benson and Darrow (1981) was a historical reference used to support development of the transient ground-water model of Death Valley regional ground-water flow system (DVRFS) completed in 2004 by the USGS (see...
Tags: Amargosa Desert, Arizona Sonoran Desert, Ash Meadows, California, California Valley, All tags...
Aim The exotic annual cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is fast replacing sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) communities throughout the Great Basin Desert and nearby regions in the Western United States, impacting native plant communities and altering fire regimes, which contributes to the long-term persistence of this weedy species. The effect of this conversion on native faunal communities remains largely unexamined. We assess the impact of conversion from native perennial to exotic annual plant communities on desert rodent communities. Location Wyoming big sagebrush shrublands and nearby sites previously converted to cheatgrass-dominated annual grasslands in the Great Basin Desert, Utah, USA. Methods At two sites in...
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These data were released prior to the October 1, 2016 effective date for the USGS’s policy dictating the review, approval, and release of scientific data as referenced in USGS Survey Manual Chapter 502.8 Fundamental Science Practices: Review and Approval of Scientific Data for Release. This digital data set defines the boundaries of the deserts of the southwestern United States. Those deserts include the Great Basin, Mojave, Colorado, and Sonoran Deserts as defined by Benson and Darrow (1981). The study by Benson and Darrow (1981) was a historical reference used to support development of the transient ground-water model of Death Valley regional ground-water flow system (DVRFS) completed in 2004 by the USGS (see...
Tags: Amargosa Desert, Arizona Sonoran Desert, Ash Meadows, California, California Valley, All tags...
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North American desert rodents in the family Heteromyidae live in an unpredictable environment characterized by extremes in temperature and food availability; therefore, the ability to hoard food is a vital adaptation. Although much laboratory research has investigated food-hoarding tactics of heteromyid rodents, data from natural systems are scarce. We used a combination of fluorescently labeled seeds and observations of focal individuals to evaluate food-hoarding behavior in wild Merriam's kangaroo rats (Dipodomys merriami) living in different competitive environments. There was considerable individual variation within populations in the tendency to larderhoard seeds in a burrow versus scatterhoard seeds in widely...
There is increasing recognition that overall interactions among plant species are often the net result of both positive and negative effects. However, the positive influence of other plants has rarely been examined using detailed demographic methods, which are useful for partitioning net effects at the population level into positive and/or negative effects on individual vital rates. This study examines the influence of microhabitats created by the native shrubs Artemisia tridentata and Purshia tridentata on the demography of the invasive annual grass Bromus tectorum in the Great Basin Desert, California, USA. Shrub understory environments differed significantly from intershrub space and were characterized by higher...
Circumstantial evidence suggests that Artemisia tridentata may out?compete Pinus ponderosa and P. jefferyi for water at ecotones between shrub steppe and montane forest vegetation in the Great Basin. Other studies indicate that within the shrub steppe Artemisia may act as a nurse plant for a third species of pine, P. monophylla. We used field experiments to study these contrasting effects of Artemisia on P. ponderosa and P. monophylla within the context of the distributional patterns in western Nevada of all three species on andesite, and on sites where hydrothermal activity has altered the andesite. At intermediate elevations in the Great Basin Artemisia and P. monophylla are restricted to unaltered desert soils,...
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These data were released prior to the October 1, 2016 effective date for the USGS’s policy dictating the review, approval, and release of scientific data as referenced in USGS Survey Manual Chapter 502.8 Fundamental Science Practices: Review and Approval of Scientific Data for Release. This geodatabase consists of a point feature class and related tables representing sample sites where vegetation data were collected from 2007 to 2013 in Clark and Lincoln Counties, Nevada. Samples are identified with a vegetation stand name and classified from the alliance to the class level of the National Vegetation Classification Standard (NVC; Federal Geographic Data Committee, 2008). The database is also available in tabular...
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This data release presents data used for analyzing spatial and temporal differences in soil surface roughness within selected biocrust communities. These records were collected by ground-based lidar for 121, 1m x 3m soil plots with biological soil crusts (biocrusts). Roughness was estimated from 5 mm resolution data (CloudCompare v. 2.10.2, 2019) for two Great Basin Desert sites (UTTR-1; UTTR-2) in December 2015 and one Chihuahuan Desert site (JER) in February 2016. Data were again collected in June 2018 for UTTR-1 and UTTR-2. Additional field and laboratory data were included within this study to understand differences in soil surface roughness between UTTR and JER as well as between the 2016 and 2018 surveys at...
Categories: Data; Tags: 5 mm resolution, Chihuahuan Desert, Ecology, Geography, Geomorphology, All tags...
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We analyzed lizard assemblage structure as a function of elevation in the Bonneville Basin region of the Great Basin Desert using data from visual surveys performed between 2000 and 2003. A total of 1221 lizard observations were recorded, representing eight of the nine species known to occur in the Bonneville Basin. Individual species response curves showed Gaussian and truncated Gaussian distributions for most taxa, and most species demonstrated a nonrandom dispersion of occurrences along the elevation gradient. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMS) revealed hierarchical structuring of lizard species, and strong correlation of NMS axes with elevation provided evidence of uniform lizard community assembly with...
1 Precipitation in arid regions is temporally variable with much of it arriving in discrete, unpredictable pulses. Climate change models predict an increase in the variation of precipitation, with longer droughts and larger rainfall events, in addition to increased temperatures. 2 A life table response experiment (LTRE) was conducted with the herbaceous arid-land perennial Cryptantha flava (Boraginaceae) from 1997 to 2000, in order to determine how variation in precipitation affects asymptotic population growth (l) and vital rates. Variation in precipitation took two forms, through rainout shelters erected just before and during the 1999 spring growing season, and through naturally occurring variation over the 4...
    map background search result map search result map Elevation gradients and lizard assemblage structure in the Bonneville Basin, western USA Competitive environment affects food-hoarding behavior of Merriam's kangaroo rats (Dipodomys merriami) Soil surface properties and roughness data at two experimental restoration sites within the Southwestern USA Deserts of the southwestern United States, for the Death Valley regional ground-water flow system study, Nevada and California Deserts of the southwestern United States, for the Death Valley regional ground-water flow system study, Nevada and California DS 827, Vegetation Database for Land-Cover Mapping in Clark and Lincoln Counties, Nevada DS 827, Vegetation Database for Land-Cover Mapping in Clark and Lincoln Counties, Nevada Elevation gradients and lizard assemblage structure in the Bonneville Basin, western USA Deserts of the southwestern United States, for the Death Valley regional ground-water flow system study, Nevada and California Deserts of the southwestern United States, for the Death Valley regional ground-water flow system study, Nevada and California Soil surface properties and roughness data at two experimental restoration sites within the Southwestern USA