Issue Date
2020-10Keywords
Biodiversity potentialGreasewood
Groundwater dependent ecosystems
Groundwater pumping
Phreatophytes
Soil salinity
State-and-transition models
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Provencher, L., Saito, L., Badik, K., & Byer, S. (2020). All systems are equal: In defense of undervalued ecosystems. Rangelands, 42(5), 159–167.Publisher
Society for Range ManagementJournal
RangelandsAdditional Links
https://rangelands.orgAbstract
We introduce the concept of biodiversity potential to assign equal biodiversity value among socially valued and undervalued ecosystems. Widespread greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus) ecosystems were examined as a case study of biodiversity potential of an undervalued ecosystem at the sodic end of soil salinity. Groundwater pumping could drop the water table below greasewood taproots, which could degrade wildlife habitat through decreased canopy cover, increased mineral soil, invasive flammable non-native annual species, and exotic forbs. State-and-transition simulation models and field studies can be used to assess degraded greasewood ecosystems. © 2020 The Author(s)Type
Articletext
Language
enISSN
0190-0528ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.rala.2020.07.002
Scopus Count
Collections
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Society for Range Management. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.