Influence of Land-Use Legacies Following Shrub Reduction and Seeding of Big Sagebrush Sites

Abstract

Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) plant communities often require management to reduce shrub density and rehabilitate understory vegetation. We studied vegetation responses to a two-way chain harrow treatment and broadcast seeding of 12 herbaceous species at eight Wyoming big sagebrush (A. tridentata Nutt. subsp. wyomingensis Beetle & Young) sites. These sites differed in land-use history; five were cultivated for dryland wheat production during the 1950 − 1980s and then seeded with introduced forage grasses (C-S), while three had not been exposed to this land-use legacy (non C-S). Our objective was to evaluate whether the C-S legacy influences the magnitude of vegetation change following contemporary treatment. Before treatment, C-S sites had lower sagebrush cover, higher dead sagebrush cover, and higher broom snakeweed (Gutierrezia sarothrae [Pursh] Britton & Rusby) cover than adjacent non C-S sites. Plant community change 3 years after treatment, determined with multivariate ordination analysis of species composition, varied between site histories, and response to treatment was most strongly correlated with reductions in sagebrush cover, increases in perennial grasses, and increases in 10 other herbaceous species—including some undesirable species and four that were seeded in 2010. Five years after treatment, mature sagebrush cover remained reduced for both land-use histories, yet density of sagebrush seedlings and broom snakeweed increased in C-S sites during the second and third years after treatment. In addition, perennial forb cover increased for C-S sites, while perennial grass biomass increased for non C-S sites. Our results emphasize that broad variability in plant community responses to sagebrush reduction and seeding is possible within the same ecological site classification and that legacy effects due to the combination of past cultivation and seeding should be considered when planning restoration projects, including the consideration that seeding may not always be necessary on C-S sites.