Livestock management, beaver, and climate influences on riparian vegetation in a semi-arid landscape.

ABSTRACT: Riparian and aquatic habitats support biodiversity and key environmental processes in semi-arid and arid landscapes, but stressors such as conventional livestock grazing, wildfire, and drought can degrade their condition. To enhance habitat for fish and wildlife and increase resiliency in these critical areas, land managers in the interior western United States increasingly use alternative grazing strategies, beaver management, or beaver dam surrogates as low-effort, low-expense restoration approaches. In this study we used historical archives of satellite and aerial imagery spanning three decades to characterize riparian vegetation productivity and document beaver dam occurrences, then evaluated vegetation productivity relative to land management associated with livestock grazing and beav

SUBMITTER: Fesenmyer KA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6289506 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature