Assessing Transportation Infrastructure Impacts on Rangelands: Test of a Standard Rangeland Assessment Protocol

Linear disturbances associated with on- and off-road vehicle use on rangelands has increased dramatically throughout the world in recent decades. This increase is due to a variety of factors including increased availability of all-terrain vehicles, infrastructure development (oil, gas, renewable energy, and ex-urban), and recreational activities. In addition to the direct impacts of road development, the presence and use of roads may alter resilience of adjoining areas through indirect effects such as altered site hydrologic and eolian processes, invasive seed dispersal, and sediment transport. There are few standardized methods for assessing impacts of transportation-related land-use activities on soils and vegetation in arid and semi-arid rangelands. Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health (IIRH) is an internationally accepted qualitative assessment that is applied widely to rangelands. We tested the sensitivity of IIRH to impacts of roads, trails, and pipelines on adjacent lands by surveying plots at three distances from these linear disturbances. We performed tests at 16 randomly selected sites in each of three ecosystems (Northern High Plains, Colorado Plateau, and Chihuahuan Desert) for a total of 208 evaluation plots. We also evaluated the repeatability of IIRH when applied to road-related disturbance gradients. Finally, we tested extent of correlations between IIRH plot attribute departure classes and trends in a suite of quantitative indicators. Results indicated that the IIRH technique is sensitive to direct and indirect impacts of transportation activities with greater departure from reference condition near disturbances than far from disturbances. Trends in degradation of ecological processes detected with qualitative assessments were highly correlated with quantitative data. Qualitative and quantitative assessments employed in this study can be used to assess impacts of transportation features at the plot scale. Through integration with remote sensing technologies, these methods could also potentially be used to assess cumulative impacts of transportation networks at the landscape scale.     

Livestock as Ecosystem Engineers for Grassland Bird Habitat in the Western Great Plains of North America

Domestic livestock have the potential to function as ecosystem engineers in semiarid rangelands, but prevailing management practices largely emphasize livestock production and uniform use of vegetation. As a result, variation in vegetation structure might not occur at appropriate spatial and temporal scales to achieve some contemporary conservation objectives. Here, we introduce the utility of livestock as ecosystem engineers and address potential benefits and consequences associated with heterogeneity-based management practices for conservation grazing in the semiarid rangelands of the western North American Great Plains. To illustrate the potential value of this approach, we provide specific examples where engineering effects of livestock could alter vegetation heterogeneity at within-pasture (< 100 ha) and among-pasture (～100 ha to thousands of hectares) scales to improve habitat for declining native grassland birds. Experimental evaluations of the efficacy of livestock to achieve desired modifications to vegetation structure are needed, along with the economic aspects associated with implementing heterogeneity-based management practices. Using livestock as ecosystem engineers to alter vegetation structure for grassland bird habitat is feasible in terms of application by land managers within the context of current livestock operations, and provides land managers important tools to achieve desired contemporary objectives and outcomes in semiarid rangelands of the western North American Great Plains.     

Weather-Centric Rangeland Revegetation Planning

Invasive annual weeds negatively impact ecosystem services and pose a major conservation threat on semiarid rangelands throughout the western United States. Rehabilitation of these rangelands is challenging due to interannual climate and subseasonal weather variability that impacts seed germination, seedling survival and establishment, annual weed dynamics, wildfire frequency, and soil stability. Rehabilitation and restoration outcomes could be improved by adopting a weather-centric approach that uses the full spectrum of available site-specific weather information from historical observations, seasonal climate forecasts, and climate-change projections. Climate data can be used retrospectively to interpret success or failure of past seedings by describing seasonal and longer-term patterns of environmental variability subsequent to planting. A more detailed evaluation of weather impacts on site conditions may yield more flexible adaptive-management strategies for rangeland restoration and rehabilitation, as well as provide estimates of transition probabilities between desirable and undesirable vegetation states. Skillful seasonal climate forecasts could greatly improve the cost efficiency of management treatments by limiting revegetation activities to time periods where forecasts suggest higher probabilities of successful seedling establishment. Climate-change projections are key to the application of current environmental models for development of mitigation and adaptation strategies and for management practices that require a multidecadal planning horizon. Adoption of new weather technology will require collaboration between land managers and revegetation specialists and modifications to the way we currently plan and conduct rangeland rehabilitation and restoration in the Intermountain West.     

Recommendations for Development of Resilience-Based State-and-Transition Models

The objective of this paper is to recommend conceptual modifications for incorporation in state-and-transition models (STMs) to link this framework explicitly to the concept of ecological resilience. Ecological resilience describes the amount of change or disruption that is required to transform a system from being maintained by one set of mutually reinforcing processes and structures to a different set of processes and structures (e.g., an alternative stable state). In light of this concept, effective ecosystem management must focus on the adoption of management practices and policies that maintain or enhance ecological resilience to prevent stable states from exceeding thresholds. Resilience management does not exclusively focus on identifying thresholds per se, but rather on within-state dynamics that influence state vulnerability or proximity to thresholds. Resilience-based ecosystem management provides greater opportunities to incorporate adaptive management than does threshold-based management because thresholds emphasize limits of state resilience, rather than conditions that determine the probability that these limits will be surpassed. In an effort to further promote resilience-based management, we recommend that the STM framework explicitly describe triggers, at-risk communities, feedback mechanisms, and restoration pathways and develop process-specific indicators that enable managers to identify at-risk plant communities and potential restoration pathways. Two STMs representing different ecological conditions and geographic locations are presented to illustrate the incorporation and application of these recommendations. We anticipate that these recommendations will enable STMs to capture additional ecological information and contribute to improved ecosystem management by focusing attention on the maintenance of state resilience in addition to the anticipation of thresholds. Adoption of these recommendations may promote valuable dialogue between researchers and ecosystem managers regarding the general nature of ecosystem dynamics.     

基于遥感和无人机数据的草地NDVI影响因子多尺度分析

为探索不同尺度草地植被的影响因子,本研究基于Landsat遥感影像和无人机多光谱影像等,在村落和地块2个尺度分析西藏草地归一化植被指数（Normalized Difference Vegetation Index,NDVI）的影响因子。结果表明：村落尺度的海拔、坡度、坡向、地表起伏度皆对NDVI有显著的非线性影响,解释比例为37.20%;方差分析表明,地形等因子相近的同类土地利用内部NDVI差异仍较大;运用无人机影像细分同种土地利用类型内部异质性,发现遥感影像中无法辨别的点状、线状地物（石堆、水渠、田间路等）对草地NDVI有一定影响;缓冲区分析表明,非硬化水渠和道路对NDVI的负面影响在1~3 m,硬化水渠和路面对草地的负面影响超过4 m。无人机获取高分辨率多光谱影像的便捷性可以推进更小尺度下人类活动强度以及景观破碎化对植被和生态系统功能影响研究的深入。     

Using State and Transition Models to Determine the Opportunity Cost of Providing Ecosystem Services

A ranch-level model using state-and-transitions models for three ecological sites is used to determine the trade-offs of providing various ecosystem services. The hypothetical ranch is located in northern Colorado and is based upon area average ecological site characteristics and livestock production practices. Management decisions include stocking rate and brush control. The model includes exogenous factors such as precipitation and fire. The model solves for optimal decisions over an infinite planning horizon using stochastic dynamic programming. Results show that a ranch cannot provide all ecosystem services in tandem at their highest level, implying that land managers must decide which ecosystems service they want to provide. Also, it is much cheaper in terms of foregone profitability for a ranch to continue to provide a specific ecosystem service that is already provided by the ranch rather than try to transition the ranch to a new ecological state in order to provide a service currently not provided.     

Land Manager Perceptions of Opportunities and Constraints of Using Livestock to Manage Invasive Plants

The ecological impacts of rangeland invasive plants have been widely documented, but the social aspects of how managers perceive their impacts and options for control have been relatively understudied, and successful, long-term invasive plant management programs are limited. In particular, though a growing body of research has identified livestock grazing as the most practical and economical tool for controlling invasive rangeland plants, to date there has not been a systematic assessment of the challenges and opportunities producers and other land managers see as most important when considering using livestock to manage invasive plants. In-depth, semistructured interviews with California annual grass and hardwood rangeland ranchers, public agency personnel, and nongovernmental organization land managers were used to address this need. Although interviewees broadly agreed that grazing could be an effective management tool, differences emerged among the three groups in how they prioritized invasive plant control, the amount of resources devoted to control, and the grazing strategies employed. Interviewees identified key challenges that hinder broad-scale adoption of control efforts, including the potential incompatibility of invasive plant management and livestock production; a lack of secure, long-term access to land for many ranchers; incomplete or insufficient information, such as the location or extent of infestations or the economic impacts to operations of invasive plants; and the temporal and spatial variability of the ecosystem. By identifying key socioecological drivers that influence the degree to which livestock are used to manage invasive plants, this study was able to identify potential pathways to move our growing understanding of the science of targeted grazing into practice. Research, extension, and grazing programs that address these barriers should help increase the extent to which we can effectively use livestock to slow and perhaps reverse the spread of some of our most serious rangeland weeds.     

Opportunities for Increasing Utility of Models for Rangeland Management

A large number of empirical and mechanistic simulation models and decision support tools have been produced for rangelands. Collectively, these models have considerably increased our fundamental knowledge and understanding of the dynamics of ecosystem functions, processes, and structure. We explore three areas where models for rangeland management are often challenging for land managers and enterprise-level decision making: 1) coping with spatiotemporal and climatic variability in implementing scenario forecasting, risk assessments, and adaptive management; 2) addressing outputs of multiple ecosystem goods and services and determining whether they are synergistic or competitive; and 3) integrating experimental and experiential knowledge and observations into decision making. Increasing the utility of models for rangeland management remains a key frontier and a major research need for the modeling community and will be achieved less by further technical advances and model complexity and more by the use of existing topoedaphic databases, the capacity to readily incorporate new experimental and experiential knowledge, and the use of frameworks that facilitate outcome-based, adaptive decision making at the enterprise level with associated economic considerations. Opportunities exist for increasing the utility of models for decision making and adaptive rangeland management through better matching of model complexity with enterprise-level, decision-making goals. This could be accomplished by incorporating a fundamental understanding of herbivory, fire, and spatiotemporal interactions with weather patterns that affect multiple ecosystem functions. Most important, effective models would allow land managers in a changing and variable climate to 1) evaluate trade offs in producing multiple goods and services, 2) optimize the application of conservation practices spatially (comparing costs and benefits accrued across different timescales), and 3) incorporate manager capacity, including experience, skills, and labor input.     

Grand Challenges for Resilience-Based Management of Rangelands

The social and ecological contexts for rangeland management are changing rapidly, prompting a reevaluation of science, management, and their relationship. We argue that progression from steady-state management to ecosystem management has served the rangeland profession well, but that further development toward resilience-based management is required to ensure that ecosystem services are sustained in an era of rapid change. Resilience-based management embraces the inevitability of change and emphasizes that management should seek to guide change to benefit society. The objectives of this forum are to: 1) justify the need for adopting resilience-based management, 2) identify the challenges that will be encountered in its development and implementation, and 3) highlight approaches to overcoming these challenges. Five grand challenges confronting the adoption of resilience-based management, based upon the insights of 56 rangeland researchers who have contributed to this special issue, were identified as: 1) development of knowledge systems to support resilience-based management, 2) improvement of ecological models supporting science and management, 3) protocols to assess and manage tradeoffs among ecosystem services, 4) use of social-ecological system models to integrate diverse knowledge sources, and 5) reorganization of institutions to support resilience-based management. Resolving the challenges presented here will require the creation of stronger partnerships between ecosystem managers, science organizations, management agencies, and policymakers at local, regional, and national scales. A realistic near-term goal for achieving such partnerships is to initiate and support collaborative landscape projects. The creation of multiscaled social learning institutions linked to evolving knowledge systems may be the best approach to guide adaptation and transformation in rangelands in the coming century.     

基于土地利用的内蒙古牧区生态系统服务时空变化(2000-2015)

内蒙古牧区是我国北方生态安全屏障,生态脆弱,近年来开发强度大,土地利用变化明显。本文以内蒙古牧区为研究区,利用遥感地理信息系统和模型模拟的方法,通过2000—2015年土地利用转移矩阵和变化动态分析,了解生态系统服务碳固定、土壤保持演变特征,开展土地利用变化及碳固定、土壤保持评价,为牧区土地资源管理提供科学支撑。结果表明：内蒙古牧区主要的土地利用类型为草地和未利用地;16年间,该地区建筑用地、林地、耕地、盐碱地面积增加,水域、沙漠、草地、未利用地面积减少;土地利用变化从草地向耕地、建筑用地、林地转移,从沙漠、水域向草地转移;全域碳固定和土壤保持均呈增加态势;各土地利用类型提供的碳固定和土壤保持服务,草地占比最大,其次为沙漠和耕地。该区域应注重保护草地、林地,扩大草地面积,治理沙漠区域,优化土地利用结构,提高生态系统服务。     

Applying Ecologically Based Invasive-Plant Management

The need for a unified mechanistic ecological framework that improves our ability to make decisions, predicts vegetation change, guides the implementation of restoration, and fosters learning is substantial and unmet. It is becoming increasingly clear that integrating various types of ecological models into an overall framework has great promise for assisting decision making in invasive-plant management and restoration. Overcoming barriers to adoption of ecologically based invasive-plant management will require developing principles and integrating them into a useful format so land managers can easily understand the linkages among ecological processes, vegetation dynamics, management practices, and assessment. We have amended a generally accepted and well-tested successional management framework into a comprehensive decision tool for ecologically based invasive-plant management (EBIPM) by 1) using the Rangeland Health Assessment to identify ecological processes in need of repair, 2) amending our framework to include principles for repairing ecological processes that direct vegetation dynamics, and 3) incorporating adaptive management procedures to foster the acquisition of new information during management. This decision tool provides a step-by-step planning process that integrates assessment and adaptive management with process-based principles to provide management guidance. In our case-study example, EBIPM increased the chance of restoration success by 66% over traditionally applied integrated weed management in an invasive-plant–dominated ephemeral wetland ecosystem. We believe that this framework provides the basis for EBIPM and will enhance our ability to design and implement sustainable invasive-plant management and restoration programs.     

Influence of Ecosystem Services on Management Decisions by Public Land Ranchers in the Intermountain West,United States

Ecosystem services are benefits humans obtain as a result of ecosystem processes and conditions. In the western United States, public rangelands are managed for a spectrum of ecosystem services on behalf of multiple stakeholders. Decisions of ranchers who hold public land grazing allotments must balance operational needs for forage with societal expectations for other ecosystem services. To better understand their choices regarding ecosystem services, we interviewed ranchers to learn about the bases for their management decisions and identify services they believe rangelands provide. A total of 19 services were identified, many of which reflected ranchers’ recognition that they manage within the context of a broader social-ecological system (e.g., maintaining open space). We then conducted a mail survey of Bureau of Land Management grazing permittees in six states to understand the importance they personally place on different services, as well as the extent to which they manage with those services in mind. Fourteen of the 19 ecosystem services identified in interviews were reported by at least 50% of the survey sample (N = 435) as influencing their management decisions. Most respondents reported trying to manage deeded and leased land to the same standard. Aside from forage for livestock (ranked #1), ranchers were less likely to report managing for provisioning services than for cultural, supporting, and regulating services. Importance ratings for ecosystem services followed a similar pattern, although there were a few differences in rank order. Ranchers tended to report managing for more ecosystem services if they had larger operations, earned at least 50% of their income from ranching, spent more time out on the ranch, and relied on multiple sources for information about range management. Results indicate public land ranchers believe they are managing for multifunctionality, balancing their own operational needs with those of society.     

State-and-Transition Models for Heterogeneous Landscapes: A Strategy for Development and Application

Interpretation of assessment and monitoring data requires information about how reference conditions and ecological resilience vary in space and time. Reference conditions used as benchmarks are often specified via potential-based land classifications (e.g., ecological sites) that describe the plant communities potentially observed in an area based on soil and climate. State-and-transition models (STMs) coupled to ecological sites specify indicators of ecological resilience and thresholds. Although general concepts surrounding STMs and ecological sites have received increasing attention, strategies to apply and quantify these concepts have not. In this paper, we outline concepts and a practical approach to potential-based land classification and STM development. Quantification emphasizes inventory techniques readily available to natural resource professionals that reveal processes interacting across spatial scales. We recommend a sequence of eight steps for the co-development of ecological sites and STMs, including 1) creation of initial concepts based on literature and workshops; 2) extensive, low-intensity traverses to refine initial concepts and to plan inventory; 3) development of a spatial hierarchy for sampling based on climate, geomorphology, and soils; 4) stratified medium-intensity inventory of plant communities and soils across a broad extent and with large sample sizes; 5) storage of plant and soil data in a single database; 6) model-building and analysis of inventory data to test initial concepts; 7) support and/or refinement of concepts; and 8) high-intensity characterization and monitoring of states. We offer a simple example of how data assembled via our sequence are used to refine ecological site classes and STMs. The linkage of inventory to expert knowledge and site-based mechanistic experiments and monitoring provides a powerful means for specifying management hypotheses and, ultimately, promoting resilience in grassland, shrubland, savanna, and forest ecosystems.     

生物土壤结皮发育及其影响因素研究进展

生物土壤结皮在干旱、半干旱地区分布较为广泛,约占陆地总面积的40%,生物土壤结皮是支撑该区生态系统主要的生物表面特征,在改善生态环境和草地土壤养分调控方面起着重要作用。自1960年以来,国内外许多学者对其生态功能进行了大量研究,但对生物土壤结皮演替机制及其微生境土壤养分变异特征的研究尚不明确。为此,本文就国内外该领域近50年来的研究进展和成果进行了详细阐述,以期了解生物土壤结皮发育对土壤肥力的作用过程;同时,也为研究干旱半干旱区退化草地生态系统的恢复与重建提供一定的科学思路。     

Fire as a Land Management Tool: Rural Sector Perceptions of Burn-off Practice in New Zealand

Fire has long been used as a tool to remove pests and disease, regenerate land, and remove unwanted vegetation buildup. Although traditionally used as a widespread land management tool in the past, its continued use could be under threat due to public perceptions pertaining to risks from burns getting out of control, as well as the impacts of smoke pollution and ecological damage. To determine the attitudes of rural practitioners and residents toward use of fire as a land management tool, this paper reports the results, analysis, and interpretation to a survey question: “Do you feel fire is a good option for managing rural land?”, along with an analysis of key attitudes toward the use of fire as a land management tool. The survey was undertaken with 696 respondents consisting of (rural land managers, rural populace, and rural fire personnel) within New Zealand. The survey identified differing perceptions about the suitability of prescribed fire use by land-based sectors. Five constructs explained the attitudes toward use of fire as a land management tool: benefits of fire use, the tradition of fire as a tool, regulations and liabilities, smoke impacts from fire, and the risks from knowledge loss and changing land use. Results showed that a person’s high agreement with the construct concerning negative smoke impacts resulted in less agreement that fire was a good option for use in rural land management in New Zealand. Main demographics influencing a positive attitude toward the use of fire included gender (male), their current use of fire, and larger land area managed. For prescribed fire to continue to be a useful tool, an improved understanding of current management practices and clear guidelines around best practice in using fire in New Zealand to manage land are required, with particular emphasis on limiting smoke impacts.     

Ecosystem Performance Monitoring of Rangelands by Integrating Modeling and Remote Sensing

Monitoring rangeland ecosystem dynamics, production, and performance is valuable for researchers and land managers. However, ecosystem monitoring studies can be difficult to interpret and apply appropriately if management decisions and disturbances are inseparable from the ecosystem's climate signal. This study separates seasonal weather influences from influences caused by disturbances and management decisions, making interannual time-series analysis more consistent and interpretable. We compared the actual ecosystem performance (AEP) of five rangeland vegetation types in the Owyhee Uplands for 9 yr to their expected ecosystem performance (EEP). Integrated growing season Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data for each of the nine growing seasons served as a proxy for annual AEP. Regression-tree models used long-term site potential, seasonal weather, and land cover data sets to generate annual EEP, an estimate of ecosystem performance incorporating annual weather variations. The difference between AEP and EEP provided a performance measure for each pixel in the study area. Ecosystem performance anomalies occurred when the ecosystem performed significantly better or worse than the model predicted. About 14% of the Owyhee Uplands showed a trend of significant underperformance or overperformance (P < 0.10). Land managers can use results from weather-based rangeland ecosystem performance models to help support adaptive management strategies.     

Reflections,applications and future directions of Long-Term Ecological Research at Tierberg§

Tierberg-LTER is a research site established in 1987 in the semi-arid Succulent Karoo near Prince Albert in the Western Cape province, South Africa. The original purpose for its establishment was to study ecosystem dynamics and the drivers of vegetation in the context of historical land use. The large body of work that has materialised from Tierberg-LTER is grounded on extensive baseline data and has greatly influenced the broader Karoo literature. It stands as the only long-term ecological research facility for the semi-arid region of South Africa. The Karoo environment faces several new developments centred largely on the expanding energy sector. Under a changing climate, ecosystems will have to further adapt to the impacts of such developments. The future research programme for Tierberg-LTER will accordingly continue to focus on understanding Karoo ecosystem dynamics and drivers of climate and anthropogenic change at local scales, thereby informing management and mitigation of future development impacts. Among a growing network of Karoo research sites, Tierberg-LTER maintains a unique role for long-term and intensive research that will contribute significantly towards the South African Environmental Observation Network’s vision of furthering ecosystem integrity, societal prosperity and sustainable development.     

Natural Regeneration Processes in Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata)

Big sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata Nuttall (Asteraceae), is the dominant plant species of large portions of semiarid western North America. However, much of historical big sagebrush vegetation has been removed or modified. Thus, regeneration is recognized as an important component for land management. Limited knowledge about key regeneration processes, however, represents an obstacle to identifying successful management practices and to gaining greater insight into the consequences of increasing disturbance frequency and global change. Therefore, our objective is to synthesize knowledge about natural big sagebrush regeneration. We identified and characterized the controls of big sagebrush seed production, germination, and establishment. The largest knowledge gaps and associated research needs include quiescence and dormancy of embryos and seedlings; variation in seed production and germination percentages; wet-thermal time model of germination; responses to frost events (including freezing/thawing of soils), CO₂ concentration, and nutrients in combination with water availability; suitability of microsite vs. site conditions; competitive ability as well as seedling growth responses; and differences among subspecies and ecoregions. Potential impacts of climate change on big sagebrush regeneration could include that temperature increases may not have a large direct influence on regeneration due to the broad temperature optimum for regeneration, whereas indirect effects could include selection for populations with less stringent seed dormancy. Drier conditions will have direct negative effects on germination and seedling survival and could also lead to lighter seeds, which lowers germination success further. The short seed dispersal distance of big sagebrush may limit its tracking of suitable climate; whereas, the low competitive ability of big sagebrush seedlings may limit successful competition with species that track climate. An improved understanding of the ecology of big sagebrush regeneration should benefit resource management activities and increase the ability of land managers to anticipate global change impacts.     

Compositional Shifts in Forb and Butterfly Communities Associated with Kentucky Bluegrass Invasions

Rangeland management strategies impact biodiversity, the quality and quantity of ecosystem services, and overall rangeland resiliency. Previous management strategies, coupled with climate change, have led to widespread invasion by Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis; bluegrass) in the Northern Great Plains, United States. Bluegrass invasions are expected to have detrimental impacts on biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provided by rangelands. Yet none have investigated how bluegrass invasions influence pollinator populations, which are a prominent conservation concern and provide ecosystem services. We measured the impact of bluegrass invasion on mixed-grass prairie forb and butterfly communities. Obligate grassland butterflies, those that rely on grasslands, decreased as bluegrass cover increased, including the threatened Hesperia dacotae. Conversely, the abundance of facultative grassland butterflies, those found in grasslands but not fully dependent on them for their life history, increased as bluegrass increased. Moreover, plant species diversity and flowering forb species richness decreased as bluegrass cover increased. Overall, bluegrass invasion led to butterfly and plant community simplification, signaling a loss of biodiversity and potentially ecosystem services. Our research is the first to quantify how grassland butterflies and the floral resources they depend on are negatively impacted by bluegrass invasion. Resource managers should adopt management strategies that reduce bluegrass cover and improve nectar and host resources for obligate grassland butterflies. Management choices that removed disturbance regimes inherent to the Northern Great Plains (i.e., fire and grazing) led to bluegrass dominance in the region. Therefore, restoring disturbance regimes may be one way to reduce bluegrass and benefit pollinator populations.     

Economic and Social Impacts of Wildfires and Invasive Plants in American Deserts: Lessons From the Great Basin

Research on the impacts of wildfire and invasive plants in rangelands has focused on biophysical rather than human dimensions of these environmental processes. We offer a synthetic perspective on economic and social aspects of wildfire and invasive plants in American deserts, focusing on the Great Basin because greater research attention has been given to the effects of cheatgrass expansion than to other desert wildfire/invasion cycles. We focus first on impacts at the level of the individual decision-maker, then on impacts experienced at the human community or larger socio-political scales. Economic impacts of wildfire differ from those of invasive grasses because although fire typically reduces forage availability and thus ranch profit opportunities, invasive grasses can also be used as a forage source and ranchers have adapted their grazing systems to take advantage of that circumstance. To reduce the threat of increased ranch bankruptcies, strategies are needed that can increase access to alternative early-season forage sources and/or promote diversification of ranch income streams by capturing value from ranch ecosystem services other than forage. The growth of low-density, exurban subdivisions in Western deserts influences not only the pattern and frequency of wildfire and plant invasions but also affects prevailing public opinion toward potential management options, and thereby the capacity of land management agencies to use those options. Outreach efforts can influence public opinion, but must be rooted in new knowledge about multiple impacts of invasion and increased wildfire in American deserts.