Thinking Like a Grassland: Challenges and Opportunities for Biodiversity Conservation in the Great Plains of North America
by David Augustine, Ana Davidson, Kristin Dickinson, Bill Van Pelt
The current complex pattern of land ownership and use of Great Plains grasslands challenges native species conservation. Approaches to managing both public and private grasslands, frequently focused at the scale of individual pastures or ranches, limit opportunities to conserve landscape-scale processes such as fire, animal movement, and metapopulation dynamics. Using the US National Land Cover Database and Cropland Data Layers for 20112017, we analyzed land cover patterns for 12 historical grassland and savanna communities (regions) within the US Great Plains. Read more