Ventenata Dubia Cover, forb diversity and forb richness

Questions: Grassland degradation due to agriculture, changing fire regimes, and invasive species negatively affects forb communities. Conserving forbs and the services they provide requires a better understanding of their responses to interacting disturbances. Although fire and livestock grazing are important disturbances, their effect on forb communities in the Pacific Northwest Bunchgrass Prairies is not fully understood. Our objectives were to: 1) determine how prescribed fire and livestock grazing influence forb community composition, cover, species richness, and diversity over a 10-year span; 2) identify indicator species for each treatment; and 3) quantify forb responses to increasing cover of the invasive grass Ventenata dubia.
Location: Pacific Northwest Bunchgrass Prairie, Oregon, USA.
Methods: We monitored plant responses in a manipulative study established in 2004 with four treatments (prescribed fire, livestock grazing, both fire and grazing, and a control with no fire or gr...