In the Great Basin of the western United States, expansion of Pinus monophylla (singleleaf piñyon) and Juniperus osteosperma (Utah juniper) out of historic woodlands and into Artemisia spp. (sagebrush) shrubland communities can facilitate the invasion of exotic downy brome (Bromus tectorum) and lead to decreases in ecological and economic values of shrublands. This expansion has, therefore, been the focus of management efforts, including the thinning or removal of trees in areas that were historically shrubland.

Stakeholder participation in environmental assessment of past land management and restoration actions in drylands is important to improve knowledge and management of these ecosystems. Participatory identification and prioritization of monitoring and assessment criteria, while increasingly incorporated into assessment, is still perceived as challenging due to conflicting values and perspectives among stakeholders.

Population ecology, the discipline that studies the dynamics of species’ populations and how they interact with the environment, has been one of the most prolific fields of ecology and evolution. Demographic research is central to quantifying population‐level processes and their underlying mechanisms and has provided critical contributions to a diversity of research fields. Examples include the spread of infectious diseases, eco‐evolutionary dynamics and rapid evolution, mechanisms underlying invasions and extinctions, and forest productivity.

Pathogen contamination of waterbodies, which is often identified by the presence of pathogen indicators such as Escherichia coli, is a major water quality concern in the United States. Reducing in-stream pathogen contamination requires an understanding of the combined impacts of land cover, climatic conditions, and anthropogenic activities at the watershed scale. In this study these factors are considered by assessing linear relationships between in-stream E. coli water quality data, watershed indexes, and rainfall for the Squaw Creek Watershed, IA, USA.

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) habitat management involves vegetation manipulations to increase or decrease specific habitat components. For sage-grouse habitat management to be most effective, an understanding of the functional response of sage-grouse to changes in resource availability is critical. We investigated temporal variation in diet composition and nutrient content (crude protein, calcium, and phosphorus) of foods consumed by preincubating female sage-grouse relative to food supply and age of hen.

In this study, we simulated heterotrophic CO₂(Rh) fluxes at six European peatland sites using the ECOSSE model and compared them to estimates of Rh made from eddy covariance (EC) measurements. The sites are spread over four countries with different climates, vegetation and management. Annual Rh from the different sites ranged from 110 to 540 g C m⁻². The maximum annual Rh occurred when the water table (WT) level was between −10 and −25 cm and the air temperature was above 6.2 °C. The model successfully simulated seasonal trends for the majority of the sites.

Increasing natural disturbances in conifer forests worldwide complicate political decisions about appropriate land management. In particular, allowing insects to kill trees without intervention has intensified public debate over the dual roles of strictly protected areas to sustain ecosystem services and to conserve biodiversity. Here we show that after large scale bark beetle Ips typographus infestation in spruce Picea abies forests in southeastern Germany, maximum nitrate concentrations in runoff used for drinking water increased significantly but only temporarily at the headwater scale.

The 'Research to Reality Project' assisted beef producers in the Burdekin catchment of north Queensland to develop practical responses to a range of production and grazing land management challenges. The project involved three groups of beef producers encompassing 19 enterprises, 680000ha of land and the management of 162000 cattle. The project was founded on a continuous improvement and innovation approach, and included an employed industry champion and multi-disciplinary project team who used a range of extension methods to identify, develop and implement on-property projects.

Social learning plays key roles in sustainable natural resource management; however, studies on its role show mixed results. Even though most current studies highlight positive outcomes, there are also negative effects of social learning with respect to natural resource management. This paper explores the influence of social learning outcomes on the adoption of soil conservation practices in Amba Zuria, Ethiopia. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, group discussions and in workshops.

The fine-scale spatial structure of plant communities is a key component for understanding the dynamics in vegetation following changes in land management but needs to be assessed at an appropriate scale. We studied the response of plant diversity and spatial variability of species and trait composition to grazing vs. non-grazing (>20 years) using different grain sizes of sampling in three subalpine plant communities.