A workshop focusing on invasive annual grass management in sagebrush steppe was held on December 14 and 15, 2020

The workshop was attended by 250 participants with over 30 presenters.

This special issue of Rangelands includes papers authored by the presenters on the topics covered in the workshop.

Invasive annual grasses on sagebrush rangelands are negatively impacting land uses and values ranging from forage for grazing livestock to native plant diversity, wildlife habitat, and human safety via associated increases in the wildfire footprint.

In December 2020 a diverse group of managers, scientists, and government officials held a symposium to discuss existing and emerging options for ameliorating the annual grass threat and associated impacts in the Northern Great Basin region.

I provide a broad overview of sagebrush plant community ecology, how that ecology has varied through time, the role of invasive annual grasses in influencing sagebrush plant community ecology, and thoughts on a productive path forward.

My broad overview serves as an operational context framing the importance of and relationships between the papers in this Special Issue.

Invasive annual grasses pose a widespread threat to western rangelands, and a strategic and proactive approach is needed to tackle this problem.

Oregon partners used new spatial data to develop a geographic strategy for management of invasive annual grasses at landscape scales across jurisdictional boundaries. The geographic strategy considers annual and perennial herbaceous cover along with site resilience and resistance in categorizing areas into intact core, transitioning, and degraded areas.

The geographic strategy provides 1) a conceptual framework for proactive management, building upon similar work recently begun across the Great Basin, and 2) multi-scale spatial products for both policymakers and local managers to identify strategic areas for investment of limited resources.

These spatial products can be used by Oregon partners to generate a shared vision of success, facilitate proactive management to “defend and grow the core,” and collaboratively develop meaningful and realistic goals and strategies for management of annual grasses at landscape scales.

New geographic strategies provide the landscape context needed for effective management of invasive annual grasses in sagebrush country.

Identifying and proactively defending intact rangeland cores from annual grass invasion is a top priority for management.

Minimizing vulnerability of rangeland cores to annual grass conversion includes reducing exposure to annual grass seed sources, improving resilience and resistance by promoting perennial plants, and building capacity of communities and partnerships to adapt to changing conditions and respond to the problem with appropriate actions in a timely manner.

Effective wildland fire response and suppression are critical for reducing the size of frequent and severe wildfires, thereby reducing the risk of post-fire conversion to invasive annual grass-dominated plant communities.

Wildland firefighter safety and strategic deployment of resources are paramount for timely initial attack to prevent incidents from escalating.

By mobilizing a timely and safe initial response, early detection technologies, strategic networks of fuel breaks, and Rangeland Fire Protection Associations help “minimize the bad days” on the fireline and improve suppression success on a vast and remote landscape.

Wildfires and incidents of large fires have increased substantially in the past few decades, in part from increases in fine, dry fuels. Fine fuel management is needed, and grazing is likely the only tool applicable at the scale needed to have meaningful effects.

Moderate grazing decreases wildfire probability by decreasing fuel amount, continuity, and height and increasing fuel moisture content. Grazing, through its modification of fuels, can improve fire suppression efforts by decreasing flame lengths, rate of fire spread, and fire severity.

Logistical, social, and administrative challenges exist to using grazing to decrease fire probability. Some of these challenges can be overcome by using off-season (i.e., fall-winter) grazing, but other challenges will require persistent efforts as well as science to support management changes.

Rangeland resilience is influenced by a variety of ecosystem properties that fall into two broad categories, 1) abiotic and 2) biotic.

Although important to consider in land management planning, abiotic properties cannot be directly influenced with management. In contrast, biotic properties of the ecosystem can be readily influenced by management.

The formula for robust biotic resilience to wildfire and resistance to invasive annual grasses in the northern Great Basin sagebrush ecosystem is about maintaining and promoting perennial bunchgrasses.

The management system must be resilient if we hope to promote ecosystem resilience in an everchanging risk, seedling recruitment, and recovery environment. A successful strategy for promoting ecosystem resilience will require securing a resilient management system, and a shift in paradigm from random acts of opportunistic restoration to a sustained, organized, process-based approach for promoting ecosystem resilience.

The continued expansion of invasive annual grasses is a complex ecosystem management problem requiring a shift in focus from a discrete, single treatment approach to one of adaptive management with sustained investment.

Four case studies shared at the 2020 Invasive Annual Grass workshop provide lessons learned and opportunities to advance future management efforts to inform the direction for new science.

Tackling the complex problem of invasive annual grass management will require an expansion of science-based case studies of real-world management efforts, strong science and management partnerships, and a platform for continuous learning and communication, such as a comprehensive database to document management outcomes along with Open Access journals that allow publishing of negative and null outcomes.

Managers can use existing tools such as the Land Treatment Digital Library, Land Treatment Exploration Tool, and the Rangeland Analysis Platform to understand the efficacy of invasive annual grass treatments under a variety of site and environmental conditions.

Using native species in seed-based restoration efforts is critical for recreating or maintaining healthy, resistant, and resilient ecosystems and communities in the Intermountain Western United States.

The use of seed from native species has increased dramatically in the last few decades, and so have research and the development of new guidance for best practices.

Despite all the valuable effort to date, we have yet to see the full potential of native plant species restoration in this region.

Several important paths to improved success of native plant restoration are clear: recognize and leverage intraspecific variation and local adaptation in plants, increase the development and use of seed transfer guidance, build seed production partnerships to benefit restoration and local communities, and be ready and willing to adopt changes to the way things are done when the evidence is clear that change will help.

The challenge of returning native plants to degraded dryland ecosystems will always be prone to failures, but improved success is possible if researchers, policy makers, restorationists, seed growers, and others work to bring new science, guidance, and recommendations to scale.

Management interventions for addressing invading annual grasses and encroaching conifers and their effects on fire dynamics in the sagebrush ecosystem are largely reactive.

Reactive management limits tools for promoting long-term ecosystem resilience on a fire-prone landscape.

We propose an integrated fire management approach in which all management activities before, during, and after wildfire are synergistic and improve long-term ecosystem response to fire.

Harney County Wildfire Collaborative is adapting the Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) framework to improve fire outcomes and promote values at risk in the Stinkingwater Mountains pilot project area.

The PODs framework serves to promote a broader geographic strategy for addressing the underlying causes of frequent and severe wildfires in the sagebrush ecosystem.

Bringing diverse groups together in collaboration to solve complex landscape-scale issues presents opportunities and challenges.

Collaborating at the planning stage of restoration projects can be slow. It takes time to build relationships, and meeting people “where they are at” is often the accomplishment.

Success in collaboration comes from gathering the local knowledge to move forward with implementing projects.

Long-standing collaborative groups often face challenges with keeping stakeholders and partners involved particularly when tracking past projects. Finding continued funding to maintain the projects implemented years earlier takes effort usually on behalf of the convening organization.

This Special Issue of Rangelands describes the Defend the Core framework, based on a December 2020 symposium focused on the impacts of wildfire and invasive annual grasses in Oregon, the Northern Great Basin, and sagebrush ecosystems across the West.

Invasive annual grasses, wildfire, and climate change are changing ecosystem processes in the sagebrush biome at a pace and scale requiring an assessment of where processes can be saved, where they can be regained, and where they are lost.

Confronting these threats is the primary focus of restoration and management efforts, guiding policy creation, project prioritization, and action on the ground.

The new Defend the Core framework helps land managers, landowners, and policy makers to use the tools or management actions most likely to improve conditions.