Data From: Variability In Vegetation Outcomes In Widespread Post-fire Non-native Perennial Grass Seedings Associated With Site Environment And Weather

Crested wheatgrass is widely, and historically, seeded across sagebrush steppe rangelands to increase perennial cover and compete with invasive annual grasses post-fire, however, outcomes vary, likely due to complex combinations of site environmental variables and weather. This study examines variation in vegetation characteristics in post-fire areas associated with crested wheatgrass seeding, and environmental variables, in the northern Great Basin. We selected 142 treatments on Bureau of Land Management lands seeded post-fire with crested wheatgrass over the past two decades in two ecoregions (Snake River Plain, Northern Basin and Range). We selected target 30 m pixels and matched them to 150 reference pixels based on environmental similarity and burn severity within 0.3-3.5 km radius in unseeded areas. We compared change overtime post-seeding in the target pixels to reference pixels with a synthetic control method, comparing pre-fire differences in vegetation between target and reference pixels to post-seeding outcomes. We extracted effect sizes at 5 and 10 years post-fire. We tested for the effects of fire severity, elevation, sand content, and spring precipitation in two time points on seeding effects for each type of cover.
Organization: Department of Agriculture
Organization URL: https://catalog.data.gov/organization/usda
Last updated: 2026-03-16
Tags: bare ground, crested wheatgrass, invasive annual grasses, sagebrush steppe, shrub, synthetic control