1. Restore New Mexico Collaborative Monitoring Program
BLM Las Cruces District Office, USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range
Contact: Leticia Lister; Brandon Bestelmeyer;
Questions
Is shrub control having beneficial effects?
If so, how often and how much?
Under what conditions do we see
beneficial effects?
Can we target these conditions?
How should we adaptively manage
restoration trajectories?
Snapshot comparisons of treated/untreated areas can be difficult to interpret
preexisting differences between “treated” and “untreated”
temporal variability in treatment effects
gradual changes require precise, long-term measurements
Structured monitoring provides reliable answers
Specify hypothesized responses: Wet springs/summers will result in recruitment or increases in size classes of perennial grasses, especially in shrub interspaces where they may be very rare. Certain non-target forb species may be harmed. Shrubs reinvade with wet winters.
Precise, repeatable methods that address the hypotheses: a) Line-point intercept, b) basal gap, c) belt transects, and d) photo points on fixed lines. Based on Monitoring Manual for Grassland, Shrubland, and Savanna Ecosystems. Training and calibration of BLM staff. Resulting data can be compared with those of other monitoring efforts (NRI, AIM).
Effort includes 172 total plots as of New plots are added as new treatments are applied.

2. Stratification and unbiased point selection for observational monitoring
- random point selection in grid
- inference is restricted to potentially sampled areas
- stratify by management units, ecological sites, states (when known) = monitoring units
- randomly select rapid assessment points at 1/250 ac per monitoring unit
- randomly select monitoring points for monitoring units based on exclusion rules
Rapid assessment vs monitoring
Assessment determines ecological site, state, and effectiveness of herbicide application in killing shrubs. Points will be followed up with photographic monitoring.
Monitoring quantifies plant community responses when shrub mortality is achieved (>75% of shrubs have > 50% leaf loss). This separates estimates of application effectiveness from response effectiveness.
Experimental monitoring
On all treatments starting in 2009, pre-select carefully matched treatment and control plots of 300 x 300 m of same initial ecological site, state, and landscape context.
Randomly assign one of the “twins” to be a non-treated plot within treatment area
Monitoring control and treatment plots before and after the treatments (BACI design)
Results/interpretation
For example, 5 years post-treatment in one landscape, canopy cover increased relative to controls, but mostly due to a single, ephemeral grass species. Valuable black grama grass declined in spite of treatment, suggesting a need to evaluate management.