Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
( beeping )
( beeping fades)
( birds chirping )
( piano )
JEFF: A lot of people that live in the West
think sagebrush is ubiquitous -
it's widespread, everywhere they travel they see it,
they go across northern Nevada or southern Idaho or eastern Oregon
you see sagebrush as far as you can see.
PAUL: So at first glance when you think of sagebrush,
it seems like really mundane plant - you know, we have it everywhere,
it's all over the western United States,
and it doesn't seem that important or that valuable,
but when you start looking at the habitat - the sagebrush habitat - it's more than just sagebrush,
and it encompasses this complex system of interaction
between the sagebrush, the grasses, the plants, the shrubs and trees ...
A lot of people don't know what they're missing, because what they don't get,
is that these are incredibly rich, productive systems,
or they can be, anyway.
But unfortunately there's very, very little of that left.
You know, we have impacted sagebrush to such an extent over the last century and a half
through ... settlement patterns, our development ...
our farming ... our grazing ...
bring in fire, bringing in species,
you know, novel species from other parts of the world, like cheatgrass ...
PAUL: One of the problems that we're faced with here is
the encroachment of invasive species. When you look across this habitat,
it seems on its face very healthy, but a lot of the species that you're seeing here,
just don't belong here, or haven't traditionally been here -
they've been brought in by humans, they've been brought in by cattle and sheep,
they've been brought in by other livestock, or they've just been given an opportunity to grow,
because of up the changes that we've made to the natural processes here.
Some examples are: cheatgrass - you look back in some of these areas, and you see
wide expanses of cheatgrass, or Medusa head grass ...
JEFF: So, for the Upper Columbia Basin Inventory Monitoring Network,
you know, it was an obvious community to pay attention to,
because it's - so much is gone,
and yet is so huge,
and it supports so many different kinds of life forms.
TOM: Well, we're monitoring in the sagebrush steppe ecosystems
to get information on trends over time
in the important species - both native and non-native species - and by comparing
both native and non-native species in the community, we get insight into, really, the health of these systems.
We try and get this monitoring information back into the hands of park managers
as quickly as possible, so that they are able to make informed decisions
about where they should be restoring,
or where are the areas of these lands, of these parks, that are in really good shape
that have been able to sort of maintain the characteristic components,
the species, the processes, things like that, that we really want to try and preserve and protect over time.
And then, you know, where are the problems areas?
JIM: This is a patch of Medusa head that I found maybe two years ago.
I'm not sure when it came here, but I hadn't noticed it before.
When these things dry out, they will float in the wind,
and you'll see them bouncing along the surface to the ground
and the park is just over the hill.
As it accumulates, you get this biomass that is just thick - that nothing seems to penetrate -
so that you end up with a monoculture.
I mean, in here, we still have a few forbs that are coming up ...
eventually this will be so thick with Medusa head,
that there is nothing in here but Medusa head.
And, as a result of that, you just lose all sorts of plant species
plus all of the ... all of the insect species,
all the other species that depend upon, you know, this -
this natural ecotype, and that's the scary part with Medusa head.
In the old days it was simple. You -
you tried to keep it exactly the way it was when European man first saw it.
But the difficulties in doing that were so overwhelming that -
that rather than give up we've changed that - that - those goal posts a little bit,
and the whole idea I think now of, of building a -
or, or maintaining ecosystem and promoting an ecosystem that is resiliant
is beginning to become the dominant theme.
And I think rightly so.
TOM: Resilience is a really important concept gets at this idea of these the abilities landscapes to recover after
disturbances like fire drought for example we're trying to get
insight into the resilience at these landscapes
one of the biggest challenges facing the National Park Service right now
ans many years in the future is going to be our changing climate
it's changing at a rate unprecedented im
historical record but also the fossil record restore
record how ready are somebody's ecosystems how
able are these ecosystems she adapts to
drastic changes that are happening very quickly so
when we think about resilience were thinking about ways that we can
manage and assist ecosystem
to handle dramatic changes
but monitoring is quite complex because the systems are trying to monitor quite
complex
and so when you think about this it's an ecosystem it's not just a single plant
like this blue punch we craft for the sagebrush behind me
it submits a variety of plants and
soils and topography send elevations and saw
how do you look at that complexity and how do you monitor effectively
with a pretty straightforward thing and I was a tough challenge
when I go out and do is
I use a square meter hot
that I set out and within that plot
I measure the cover these important component
these you know the sagebrush other principal shrubs
the native bunch grasses non-native
invasive grasses we'll really look at some adjust the key
factors in sagebrush steppe
there'll be teams that will go on for years you know that the idea this Mon
trains is going to last
for decades and decades and decades in
mmm
in
mmm
the more we understands the resources to merge
mines ru a program like inventory and monitoring
enables asked you not only understands better
why means places but will enable us to continue to protect his organs
places like national parks to me it's a travesty to lose
0 I mean we just have so few examples
if we can maintain these big need a bunch grasses and sagebrush is
where they actually occur it takes vision that goes out
over decades 2 centuries and it takes
people to make it happen the new then there's the whole
I'll that we can actually maintain somebody's
characteristic assets in this community
I'm really really pleased the park service
as develop this inventory monitoring program and I'm really pleased that
they're investing
people and money into doing things
it
female
the means
are
it