February 24, 2016 | 8:00 AM
Cheatgrass, red brome, and other exotic annual grasses in the Bromus genus are among the most significant agents of change in Great Basin ecosystems. This session is a high-level summary of findings and recommendations from a recent synthesis of brome grasses across the western US, which culminated in a newly released book (Springer). Each presentation will explore geographic variation in brome grasses, comparing the Great Basin to surrounding ecoregions, along with research needs and management implications.
Convener: Matt Germino, Research Ecologist, US Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center
Boise ID 83706; mgermino@usgs.gov
Co-organizers: Jeanne Chambers and Cynthia Brown
Jeanne Chambers, Research Ecologist, U.S. Forest Service, 920 Valley Road, Reno, NB 89512; jchambers@fs.fed.us
Cynthia Brown, Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO; Cynthia.S.Brown@colostate.edu
Speaker Information
Bromus impacts and the REEnet: introduction, rationale, and a path forward.
Matt Germino, J. Stark, J. Belnap, E. Allen, and B. Rau.
Matt Germino, Research Ecologist, US Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Boise ID 83706; mgermino@usgs.gov
Matt is a biophysical and physiological plant ecologist, specializing in plant-soil relationships. His research advances our basic understanding of resistance and resilience and how to manage for them, with a focus on sagebrush steppe and forest ecotones. He serves as scientist for the Great Basin Landscape Conservation Cooperative.
Bromus in the Basin: commonalities and differences compared to surrounding ecoregions
Matt Brooks, US Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Oakhurst, CA; mlbrooks@usgs.gov
Matt has a Ph.D. in Biology with a concentration in Ecology and Population Biology from the University of California, Riverside. He currently studies community ecology of deserts and fire ecology.
Fire, grazing, and the human hand on Bromus
David Pyke, US Geological Survey, Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Corvallis OR 97331 David_a_pyke@usgs.gov
Dave is a Research Ecologist with the US Geological Survey. He has degrees in Range Management, Forestry and Botany and has spent 30 years conducting research on the ecology of cheatgrass and native plants in the Intermountain West. He has examined the role of disturbances from land uses have on cheatgrass-to-native plant relationships as a means for providing long-term management guidelines for the semiarid lands of the western US.
Traits of Bromus that confer invasiveness: genetic considerations and results from the Bromus REEnet database
Cynthia (Cini) Brown, Associate Professor, Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO; Cynthia.S.Brown@colostate.edu
Cini's career is built on the foundation of plant community ecology, which she has applied to studies of invasive plants and restoration ecology. She has grappled with invasive Bromus species as a kid exploring the golden hills of California, as a graduate student studying restoration of native perennial grasses to California's prairies at U.C. Davis, as a postdoc introducing Bromus tectorum to studies of the effects of species diversity on invasion at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in Minnesota, as an early-career academic leading the Rocky Mountain Cheatgrass Management Project from Colorado State University, and with the Bromus REEnet that culminated in the recently published text Exotic Brome-Grasses in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems of the Western US.