Fine-Loamy Very Deep Slopes
Scenario model
Current ecosystem state
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Management practices/drivers
Select a transition or restoration pathway
- Transition 1 More details
- Transition 1 More details
- Transition 2 More details
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No transition or restoration pathway between the selected states has been described
Target ecosystem state
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Description
This state represents the historic range of variability for this ecological site, pre-European settlement. This state no longer exists due to the naturalization of non-native species in the Mojave Desert. Data for this State does not exist, but community dynamics would have been similar to State 2, except with only native species present and no grazing impacted community phases.
Submodel
Description
Non-native annuals, including red brome (Bromus rubens) and red-stem storks bill (Erodium cicutarium) are naturalized in this state. Their abundance varies with precipitation, but they are at least sparsely present (as current year's growth or present in the soil seedbank). Data for this state does not currently exist, due to intense land use of the geographic reference area of this site beginning the early 1800's, which included fire, mining, land clearing, hog farming, and cattle grazing (Snorf, 1991). Grazing of the reference community would have led to a blackbrush-dominated community with a reduced grass component.
Submodel
Description
This state exists when long-lived, dominant blackbrush is lost from the community. This occurs with large-scale fires, where a blackbrush seed source is not available to recolonize, or with recurrent fire that does not provide a long enough interval to allow for blackbrush recovery.
Submodel
Mechanism
This transition occurred with naturalization of non-native annual species such as red brome (Bromus rubens), cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), and redstem storks bill (Erodium cicutarium) with European exploration and settlement from the 1860s through the 1900s (e.g. Brooks and Chambers 2011). The ubiquitous presence of non-native annuals means that removing them entirely is essentially impossible.
Model keys
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Ecological sites
Major Land Resource Areas
The Ecosystem Dynamics Interpretive Tool is an information system framework developed by the USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and New Mexico State University.