COS 24-1 - Grazing for ecological function – soil carbon, vegetation, birds and rancher livelihoods

Abstract: The majority of grasslands across the Northern Great Plains (NGP) are privately owned and operated and are ecologically significant as an imperiled and disappearing biome. Grassland bird habitat and population decline over the past half-century has become critically important action areas for conservation. The goal of the Ranch Systems and Viability Planning (RSVP) project at the World Wildlife Fund is to actively work with ranchers to improve the underlying ecology of their ranches for livestock production and ecological co-benefits. Improving rangeland function for rancher livelihood keeps grazers on grass and prevents conversion to cropland – where biome transformation is most profound. The purpose of this talk is to communicate the ecological relevance of our work, and to provide preliminary findings from the first two years of ecological monitoring. Our most basic question is, how do changes in grazing management impact ecological function of rangelands? We are interested in the myriad of human social, soil, vegetation, and wildlife interactions that aggregate into our conception of ecological function and are working to disentangle and illuminate interconnections. We are on a path to create a long-term ecological monitoring platform that tracks changes in grazing management, as well as basic indicators of soil health, vegetation productivity, and bird populations. We established an outreach network to form partnerships with ranchers across the NGP and offer ecological monitoring and cost-share project coordination as incentives for participation. Over the first two years we partnered with 54 ranches in Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming covering 500,000 acres and conducted baseline ecological monitoring for vegetation, soil carbon, and birds. We used a biophysical stratified random sample approach to survey 20 points at each ranch. In vegetation surveys, we have identified 173 plant species and shown average biomass productivity at 1,975 lbs. per acre. Water infiltration in 1.9 in./hour in 2021 and 3.6 in./hour in 2022. Soil organic carbon averaged 24.6 (±5.2) tons/acre between 0 and 30 cm depth in 2021, differing from the NRCS SSURGO database which estimated average soil organic carbon in the same locations and depths at 15.9 (±5.7) tons/acre. We are actively surveying ranchers on grazing management practices and record practices as winter-summer rotational or if adaptive strategies are used such as with rest periods for pastures/paddocks and will report results. This project establishes a baseline on ecological function and tracks progress toward our goal of improving ecological function of the NGP.