@ IS SELF ORGANIZATION

Study shows how local fishers respond to climate challenges

Large cooperatives adopt conservation measures for shifting climate conditions, even without government oversight

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

A PAIR OF FISHING BOATS PREPARES TO LAUNCH INTO MEXICO’S GULF OF CALIFORNIA.

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CREDIT: AKIKO IKEGUCHI

BEAUFORT, N.C. – When it comes to protecting a crucial resource in the face of changing conditions, it’s important to know how the humans reliant on that resource have organized themselves. Especially if there isn’t a lot of government supervision.

A new study of small-scale fisheries in Mexico’s Gulf of California has found that the fishers’ response to a changing climate can be strongly influenced by what they fish for and how they’re organized. The work appears in the January 2024 issue of Global Environmental Change.

“When we study climate change adaptation, we haven't paid nearly enough attention to how those fishers, these farmers, these water irrigators are organized,” said Xavier Basurto, the Truman and Nellie Semans/Alex Brown & Sons Professor of sustainability science at the Duke Marine Lab and senior Co-Principal Investigator of this research project.

Their organization, or self-governance, turns out to be key.

“We see that, depending on how they're organized, they are better able to adapt to climate change, but it comes with tradeoffs,” Basurto said.

Using ten years of fisheries data from the Mexican government, the researchers observed a natural experiment in which the sea was unusually cool from 2006 to 2011, and then unusually warm from 2012 to 2016. They looked at four kinds of fishing organization across eight different regions surrounding the gulf.

Rather than having satellite data and sophisticated models to monitor changing conditions, the Gulf of California fishers have “a very intimate knowledge of the environment because they're interacting with it every day,” Basurto said. “They're very, very good at reading the landscape or the environment, because their success as fishers depends on that. They see changes that they haven't seen in their lives and that their elders haven't told them about.”

One of the main findings shows that large cooperative fishing organizations specialized or focused specifically on just a few key high-value species like shrimp, lobster, or abalone, were more likely to adapt their practices to minor changes in conditions and to practice conservation measures, Basurto said. However, their degree of specialization on a few harvested species constrained their ability to adapt to larger climatic fluctuations.

In contrast, the smaller cooperatives and independent fishers harvested a broader variety of species and were found to be less likely to change their practices as conditions changed. However, the smaller operators are also more likely to withstand larger climatic fluctuations because they harvest a more diverse portfolio of species.

In these remote villages along Mexico’s Gulf of California, there isn’t a lot of government oversight or policy-setting either.

“Climate variability and change in ocean ecosystems create challenges for fisheries’ sustainability, both economically and environmentally,” said Timothy Frawley, the first author on the paper and a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the University of Maine Darling Marine Center.

“While we know quite a bit about how individual fishers and coastal fishing communities are responding to changing oceans, less is known about how the social structures through which they choose to organize themselves may influence their vulnerability to associated shocks and stressors and their capacity to adapt,” Frawley said.

This study is part of MAREA+, a long-term interdisciplinary project led by Duke University focused on the environmental and human dimensions of small-scale fisheries in the Gulf of California region.

“It is really exciting to see how fine-scale information on fishing organizations can illuminate our understanding of responses to climate impacts,” said Heather Leslie, a MAREA+ Co-principal investigator and professor of marine sciences at the University of Maine. “It would be great to be able to do this type of analysis in New England, particularly given the growing interest in innovative approaches to fisheries, aquaculture and other dimensions of the blue economy.” 

This research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The team included scholars from University of California Santa Cruz, NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, the University of Maine, Stanford University, Stockholm University, University of Rhode Island, Oregon State University, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Mexican civil society organizations Sociedad de Historia Natural Niparajá, and Comunidad y Biodiversidad (COBI).

CITATION: “Self-Governance Mediates Small-Scale Fishing Strategies, Vulnerability and Adaptive Response,” Timothy H. Frawley, Blanca González Mon, Mateja Nenadovic, Fiona Gladstone, Keiko Nomura, José Alberto Zepeda-Domínguez, Salvador Rodriguez-Van Dyck, Erica M. Ferrer, Jorge Torre, Fiorenza Micheli, Heather M. Leslie, Xavier Basurto. Global Environmental Change, Jan. 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102805

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JOURNAL

Global Environmental Change

DOI

10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102805 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Self-Governance Mediates Small-Scale Fishing Strategies, Vulnerability and Adaptive Response

COUNTERINTUITIVE

Cooler, wetter parts of Pacific Northwest likely to see more fires, new simulations predict

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

MARYS PEAK, HIGHEST POINT IN THE OREGON COAST RANGE.

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CREDIT: STEVE LUNDEBERG, OSU

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Forests in the coolest, wettest parts of the western Pacific Northwest are likely to see the biggest increases in burn probability, fire size and number of blazes as the climate continues to get warmer and drier, according to new modeling led by an Oregon State University scientist.

Understanding how fire regimes may change under future climate scenarios is critical for developing adaptation strategies, said the study’s lead author, Alex Dye.

Findings were published today in JGR Biogeosciences.

Dye, a faculty research associate in the OSU College of Forestry, and collaborators with the U.S. Forest Service conducted novel, comprehensive wildfire simulations for more than 23 million acres of forest land west of the Cascade Range crest in Oregon and Washington.

The simulations showed that by the 30-year period beginning in 2035, Washington’s North Cascades region, the Olympic Mountains, the Puget Lowlands and the western Oregon Cascades could see at least twice as much fire activity as was observed during the prior 30 years, Dye said.

To a lesser degree, that trend holds for the western Washington Cascades and the Oregon Coast Range, he added.

Forests in all of the affected areas are linchpins of multiple socio-ecological systems in the Northwest, Dye said, meaning more fire will likely put pressure on everything from drinking water sources and timber resources to biodiversity and carbon stocks.

“The moist, highly productive forests of the Northwest don’t get fire as often as other parts of the West, like California or eastern Oregon,” Dye said. “But fire does naturally occur in the PNW ‘Westside’ as we call it –  the fire regimes are actually quite complex in this region. It can be challenging to assess fire probability in an environment where there isn’t a lot of empirical information about the fire history to build models.”

The comparative infrequency of fire also means it’s easy for the general public to think of the Westside as not a high-risk area, and it also means the region is generally not a focal point of studies such as the one he just completed, Dye said.

But recent big blazes such as those that occurred in the Northwest around Labor Day 2020 showed what can happen when severe fire strikes Westside areas.

“And what if fires like that were to start happening more frequently in the near future?” Dye said. “What if that once every 200 years became once every 50 years, or once every 25 years as climate change brings hotter and drier conditions to the region?”

Climate is just one factor influencing wildfire, he noted, but it is an important one. He sees the findings as a crucial planning tool to help the Northwest prepare for a rapid acceleration of fire over the next few decades.

“Describing the possibilities of how, when and where climate change could affect fire regimes helps bracket everyone’s expectations,” he said. “Particularly important among our findings are new insights into the possibility of shifts towards more frequent and large fires, especially those greater than 40,000 hectares as well as shifts toward more fires burning at the beginning of fall when extreme weather has the potential to increase fire spread.”

Forty thousand hectares is just under 99,000 acres.

Collaborating with Dye on this study were Andy McEvoy and Rebecca Lemons of the OSU College of Forestry and Matt Reilly, Karin Riley, John Kim and Becky Kerns of the Forest Service. Reilly and Kim work at the Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center in Corvallis, Kerns is at the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Corvallis, and Riley is based at the Rocky Mountain Research Center in Missoula, Montana.

The Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center and the Pacific Northwest Research Station Westside Fire Initiative supported the research.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences

DOI

10.1029/2023JG007722 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Simulated Future Shifts in Wildfire Regimes in Moist Forests of Pacific Northwest, USA

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Feb-2024

 

Ag economists offer food for thought to improve baby formula supply

Economists reveal tradeoffs associated with changes in infant formula regulation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The 2022 baby formula crisis highlighted the precarious balance between regulation, competition and safety, according to a new study published last month.

“Navigating the Challenges of Building a More Resilient Infant Formula Industry” was published in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association journal. The article takes a close look at the infant formula market and factors that contributed to the historic shortage of infant formula in 2022.

Study co-author Trey Malone, assistant professor of agricultural economics and agribusiness with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said the article proposes a “strategic rethinking of policies to foster a more competitive and accessible market.”

The goal is ensuring infant nutrition security.

“Our collaborative effort has been an enlightening journey, shedding light on the delicate balance between regulation, market competition, and ensuring the availability of essential nutrition for infants,” said Malone, who conducts research for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, research arm of the Division of Agriculture.

“This article is a great place to start for those interested in the complexities of the infant formula market and policy implications.”

Unpacking the crisis

Years of declining birth rates, increasing maternal breastfeeding, market concentration and regulations on importing infant formula were ingredients for the crisis, Malone says. The final whammy was a potential Cronobacter contamination that led to the voluntary production halt at one of the biggest infant formula production facilities in the United States. National out-of-stock rates for infant formula, which had already been at 15 percent due to supply chain issues from the pandemic, rose to 74 percent by the end of May 2022.

The article noted that the crisis underscored the existence of high market concentration in the baby formula market. Market concentration has been a feature of baby formula production since the 1980s, with two firms, Abbott and Reckitt, accounting for at least 50 percent of the market.

“A central issue in the infant formula industry is a lack of market competition and overly stringent regulations,” Malone said.

The regulatory framework for infant formula in the United States was shaped by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act and the Infant Formula Act of 1980 with amendments in 1986. The laws established standards for nutritional content and labeling, giving the Food and Drug Administration authority over infant formula manufacturing. However, the FDA has rules and regulations that have limited infant formula imports approved by “equally competent regulators in Europe” and other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, the article states.

Comparing trends in imports among 171 countries, the economists showed the United States ranked 147th in the amount of infant formula imported between 2017 and 2019.

Another key component in the infant formula market is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also known as WIC. The program provides free infant formula to qualifying low-income households. States, or a coalition of states, award WIC infant formula contracts to the manufacturer that submits the highest rebate level. This is known as a competitive sole-source contract. The economists say the practice received considerable attention during the infant formula shortage of 2022 “due to concerns that it creates a barrier to competition.

“Previous research has consistently shown that a change in a state’s contract brand substantially shifts market shares,” the article noted.

The practice of “medical detailing” infant formula samples by companies which also make medical equipment was noted in the article as unique on the world stage. “Medical detailing,” the article explains, is a practice in which manufacturers market directly to hospitals and medical professionals.

“The U.S. Government Accountability Office GAO identified medical detailing as a possible barrier to entry in part because it may be prohibitively expensive for non-pharmaceutical or medical companies,” the article noted. “The practice is fairly unique to the U.S. market as most countries regulate infant formula marketing in response to the 1980 World Health Organization’s WHO International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, which includes infant formula. This code specifically discourages the promotion of breast milk substitutes within the healthcare sector.”

A series of tradeoffs

Jackie Yenerall, lead author of the article and an assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics for the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, noted their review of the infant formula supply shortage identified a series of tradeoffs.

“Our article provides a discussion of the potential tradeoffs associated with making permanent changes to three policies and programs that currently influence the infant formula market: import tariffs, Food and Drug Administration regulation, and WIC,” Yenerall said.

Suspending tariffs or relaxing U.S. Food and Drug Administration standards could lead to an increased infant formula supply but may increase risk of contamination. Alternatively, increased consumer choice could lead to increased cost to the government from modifying WIC.

Striking the proper balance between these tradeoffs could help strengthen the infant formula industry.

“The heart of our work lies in analyzing policy responses and proposing ways to build a more resilient industry,” Malone said.

Other co-authors of the study include Andrew Muhammad, professor and Blasingame Chair of Excellence, and Karen Lewis DeLong, associate professor of agricultural and resource economics, both with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.

​To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow us on 𝕏 at @ArkAgResearch and Instagram at @ArkAgResearch.

To learn about Extension Programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit https://uaex.uada.edu/. Follow us on 𝕏 at @AR_Extension.

To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on 𝕏 at @AgInArk.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

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JOURNAL

Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy

DOI

10.1002/aepp.13416 

ARTICLE TITLE

Navigating the challenges of building a more resilient infant formula industry

 

How to build your own robot friend: Making AI education more accessible

USC researchers develop new open-source platform to help students build their own low-cost robot companion from scratch

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

 

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USC RESEARCHERS HAVE CREATED A LOW-COST, ACCESSIBLE LEARNING KIT TO HELP COLLEGE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS BUILD THEIR OWN “ROBOT FRIEND.” 

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CREDIT: PHOTO/JAMES KIM/USC.

From smart virtual assistants and self-driving cars to digital health and fraud prevention systems, AI technology is transforming almost every aspect of our daily lives—and education is no different. For all its promise, the rise of AI, like any new technology, raises some pressing ethical and equity questions.

How can we ensure that such a powerful tool can be accessed by all students regardless of background? 

Inspired by this call to action, USC researchers have created a low-cost, accessible learning kit to help college and high school students build their own “robot friend.” Students can personalize the robot’s “body,” program the robot to mimic their head posture, and learn about AI ethics and fairness in an engaging, accessible way.

“We’re proposing this open-source model to not only improve education in AI for all students but also to make human-interaction research more affordable for labs and research institutions,” said Shi. “Ultimately, we want to increase access to human-centered AI education for college students and create a pathway to more accessible research.”

To reduce costs and development time for learners, the team customized and simplified Blossom, a small, open-source robot originally developed by Hoffman at Cornell University. Blossom is a common fixture in USC’s Interaction Lab—Shi previously used the robot to design better AI voices for mindfulness exercises, while O’Connell programmed it to act as a “study buddy” for students with ADHD symptoms.    

Last year, the duo began to devise ways to use the robot for educational purposes and set to work creating a low-cost, customizable and “human-focused” module that could mirror some of the ways that students will interact with technology in their everyday lives. 

 

The system is outlined in a new study, titled “Build Your Own Robot Friend: An Open-Source Learning Module for Accessible and Engaging AI Education,” presented this week at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, education symposium track.  

“We believe it is important for students to learn about fairness and ethics in AI in the same way that we learned about math and physics in K-12,” said co-lead author Zhonghao Shi, a doctoral student in computer science who conducts his research in the USC Interaction Lab led by Professor Maja Matarić. “We may not use these subjects every day, but having a basic understanding of these concepts helps us do better work and be mindful of new technologies.”  

Supported by the National Science Foundation, the paper is co-lead-authored by Amy O’Connell, a USC computer science doctoral student and Shi’s labmate, and Zongjian Li, a software engineer working with Mohammad Soleymani, a research associate professor at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. Soleymani and Matarić are co-authors, in addition to Guy Hoffman from Cornell University, and USC computer science undergraduate students Siqi Liu and Jennifer Ayissi. 

Hands-on experience

The three-part open-source learning module provides students with hands-on experience and introductory instruction about various aspects of AI, including robotics, machine learning, software engineering, and mechanical engineering. It helps to address a gap in the market for AI education, said Shi and O’Connell.  

Currently, pre-built robots, such as the NAO, are unaffordable for schools with limited resources, while educational robot kits, such as LEGO Mindstorms, though affordable, do not adapt to students at different levels.   

To make the robot more affordable, they developed strategies to subsidize its cost. In the version of Blossom presented in the study, the materials are created using 3D printers, instead of more costly laser printing.  Currently, one of the team’s customizable robots costs around $250 to make. In comparison, a NAO robot runs at around $15,000. 

O’Connell, who learned to crochet during the pandemic, designed five new Blossom exteriors and created detailed, easy-to-follow patterns and tutorials for each version, including a baby onesie, knitted and crocheted options, which are all low-cost and customizable. 

After constructing their robot friend, students are encouraged to further customize Blossom with, for instance, mechanical eyebrows, color-changing lights, or even an expressive face screen. For O’Connell, creativity has been a crucial part of her own engineering journey.  

“Crafting and engineering require similar strengths like counting, planning, and spatial reasoning,” said O’Connell. “By incorporating crafting into this project, we hope to draw in creative students who might not have considered how their skills align with robotics and engineering.” 

Understanding ethics and fairness  

The system was piloted in a 2-day workshop in May 2023 with 15 undergraduate college students from a local minority-serving institution. Four teams of students constructed Blossom robots following the learning module assembly guide with blank knitted exterior to personalize with accessories. On the second day, the students used pre-trained head pose tracking and gesture recognition models to detect and mimic nodding behaviors from the user.

From post-workshop surveys, they found that 92% of the participants believed that the workshop helped them learn more about the topics covered and all the participants believed that the workshop encouraged them to study more about robotics and AI in the future.  

“Equipping users with AI literacy, including an understanding of AI ethics and fairness, is crucial to avoid unintended discrimination against marginalized groups,” said Shi.  

In continued work, the team plans to further evaluate and improve the module for high school students and K-12 students. Ultimately, the researchers hope to expand access for students at different educational levels. 

“We’re excited to share more about our project with people from around the world,” Shi said. “We want to make sure that people from different kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds have the opportunity to gain an education on AI and participate in the process of improving AI for future use.” 

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ARTICLE TITLE

Build Your Own Robot Friend: An Open-Source Learning Module for Accessible and Engaging AI Education

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Feb-2024

Diversifying data to beat bias

USC researchers propose a novel approach to mitigate bias in machine learning model training

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

AI holds the potential to revolutionize healthcare, but it also brings with it a significant challenge: bias. For instance, a dermatologist might use an AI-driven system to help identify suspicious moles. But what if the machine learning model was trained primarily on image data from lighter skin tones, and misses a common form of skin cancer on a darker-skinned patient?  

This is a real-world problem. In 2021, researchers found that free image databases that could be used to train AI systems to diagnose skin cancer contain very few images of people with darker skin. It turns out, AI is only as good as its data, and biased data can lead to serious outcomes, including unnecessary surgery and even missing treatable cancers. 

In a new paper published at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence this week, USC computer science researchers propose a novel approach to mitigate bias in machine learning model training, specifically in image generation.  

The researchers used a family of algorithms, called “quality-diversity algorithms” or QD algorithms, to create diverse synthetic datasets that can strategically “plug the gaps” in real-world training data.  

The paper, titled “Quality-Diversity Generative Sampling for Learning with Synthetic Data,”  was lead-authored by Allen Chang, a senior double majoring in computer science and applied math, with co-authors doctoral student Matthew Fontaine, USC computer science Stefanos Nikolaidis, Fluor Early Career Chair in Engineering and Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Maja Matarić, Chan Soon-Shiong Chair and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Pediatrics, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral graduate Serena Booth.  

“I think it is our responsibility as computer scientists to better protect all communities, including minority or less frequent groups, in the systems we design,” said Chang. “We hope that quality-diversity optimization can help to generate fair synthetic data for broad impacts in medical applications and other types of AI systems.”  

Increasing fairness 

While generative AI models have been used to create synthetic data in the past, “there’s a danger of producing biased data, which can further bias downstream models, creating a vicious cycle,” said Chang.

Quality diversity algorithms, on the other hand, are typically used to generate diverse solutions to a problem, for instance, helping robots explore unknown environments, or generating game levels in a video game. In this case, the algorithms were put to work in a new way: to solve the problem of creating diverse synthetic datasets. 

Using this method, the team was able to generate a diverse dataset of around 50,000 images in 17 hours, around 20 times more efficiently than traditional methods of “rejection sampling,” said Chang. The team tested the dataset on up to four measures of diversity—skin tone, gender presentation, age, and hair length.  

“We found that training data produced with our method has the potential to increase fairness in the machine learning model, increasing accuracy on faces with darker skin tones, while maintaining accuracy from training on additional data,” said Chang.  

“This is a promising direction for augmenting models with bias-aware sampling, which we hope can help AI systems perform accurately for all users.” 

Notably, the method increases the representation of intersectional groups—a term for groups with multiple identities—in the data. For instance, people who have both dark skin tones and wear eyeglasses, which would be especially limited traits in traditional real-world datasets.  

"While there has been previous work on leveraging QD algorithms to generate diverse content, we show for the first time that generative models can use QD to repair biased classifiers," said Nikolaidis. "They do this by iteratively generating and rebalancing content across user-specified features, using the newly balanced content to improve classifier fairness. This work is a first step in the direction of enabling biased models to 'self-repair'' by iteratively generating and retraining on synthetic data."

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ARTICLE TITLE

Quality-Diversity Generative Sampling for Learning with Synthetic Data

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Feb-2024

 

Strategic grazing could boost conservation of ‘near-threatened’ sage-grouse

University of Nevada, Reno researchers link strategic grazing to increased food supply for the species

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO

 

IMAGE: 

A MALE GREATER SAGE-GROUSE IN COURTSHIP DISPLAYS AT A BREEDING SPOT IN CENTRAL NEVADA.

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY KERRY HARGROVE.

RENO, Nev. – A multi-agency study, spearheaded by researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, underscores the impacts of strategic cattle grazing, particularly on restoring the declining population of the greater sage-grouse bird, a keystone species in the Great Basin region.  

Amidst ongoing decline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted by listing the sage-grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2011. This move prompted the Bureau of Land Management to develop a federal conservation plan for the species in 2015. Simultaneously, the World Wildlife Fund classified the sage-grouse as “near-threatened” in 2014, signifying its concern about the species’ potential future extinction.

According to the study, the intensity and timing of grazing throughout the year has a significant impact on the availability of certain insects and plants that serve as vital food sources for the species, particularly during their reproductive phase. The insects, including beetles, moths, ants, grasshoppers and butterflies, are a key source of food for the species’ hatchlings in their first three weeks of life, while the flowering plants, known as forbs, provide nutritional benefits, especially for nesting birds.

“While many studies have explored various methods to restore greater sage-grouse populations, including restricting petroleum drilling in their habitats, our research specifically focused on enhancing the food supply within mountain meadow systems, which are key habitat for wildlife,” said William Richardson, the study’s lead researcher and a postdoctoral scholar in the College’s Department of Agriculture, Veterinary & Rangeland Science. "Protecting these birds, however, requires a holistic approach that ultimately extends to fostering the growth of insects, which serve as crucial food sources, pollination agents and more."

The sagebrush desert and shrubland are the predominant plant species in much of the Great Basin. However, a U.S. Geological Survey report indicates that nearly half of the region’s rangelands have been lost due to widespread habitat destruction, primarily from wildland fire. Native species such as the sage-grouse rely on this ecosystem for food and nesting and can survive nowhere else.

The study’s findings were first published in October 2021 in the Journal of Remote Sensing and later in December 2023 in the Journal of Environmental Management. The study, conducted between 2019 and 2021, assessed the impact of three grazing intensities on seven Great Basin meadows with varying vegetation cover in central Nevada. To monitor the proliferation of insects and plants on pastured meadows on a larger scale, the study employed the use of high-resolution digital cameras designed to capture time-lapse images of foliage over longer duration. They are commonly referred to as phenocams.

“These cameras allowed us to make real-time observations and collect data simultaneously over the study’s two-year period,” Richardson said. “They typically track plant lifecycles with high accuracy and offer a more practical way to make longitudinal observations in ecological research.”

At the end of the two-year observation period, data showed that an increase in grazing during the spring and summer had a significant impact on the vegetation communities in the meadow systems, with higher grazing intensities affecting the length of the growing season. This timing coincided with the breeding season of sage-grouse, during which the nesting birds depend on the flowering plants for food.

“This is an important finding as it emphasizes the sage-grouse’s high sensitivity to disturbance, especially when they are hatching and caring for their young ones,” Richardson said.

The study also found that grazing intensity was not ultimately detrimental to insect abundance, and even permitted some insects to thrive. Specifically, beetles were found in higher numbers when grazing occurred in both wet and relatively drier seasons, while the moths and butterflies showed an increase in population during the wetter seasons.

“Our results show that strategic grazing has the potential to have a positive impact on the biodiversity of meadow habitat, which not only benefits other species, but more so the sage-grouse, which is high up in the sagebrush food chain,” he said.

Other members of the research team include Professor Tamzen K. Stringham and Associate Professor Andrew Nuss from the College’s Department of Agriculture, Veterinary & Rangeland Sciences, Postdoctoral Scholar Brian Morra from the College’s Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Science and Keirith A. Snyder from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Great Basin Rangeland Research Unit. Stringham, Nuss and Morra also conduct research as part of the College’s Experiment Station. The team received funding and technical support from the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management.

The shifting protection policies for the sage-grouse species

With sagebrush ecosystems as their only home, environmental experts have long considered the well-being of sage-grouse as a barometer for the overall health of the sagebrush ecosystems. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, a healthy sage-grouse population, restored through the restoration of its habitat, also supports 350 other sagebrush-dependent species, such as elk, deer, mule, pygmy rabbit and pronghorn, and nearly 200 migratory and resident bird species. Any decline in the species’ population, therefore, acts as a natural alarm for an imbalanced sagebrush ecosystem.

“The entire sage-grouse habitat is in the Western United States, and much of that land is publicly owned and managed by the federal government for purposes of conservation and development of natural resources, grazing and recreation,” said Brian Morra, a soil ecology postdoctoral scholar in the University’s Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Science, and a member of the research team. “Given this extensive federal involvement, research findings from publicly funded scientists, such as those presented in this study, play a crucial role in informing and supporting the habitat’s conservation policies.”

Despite numerous scientific appeals for the preservation of sagebrush-dependent species such as the sage-grouse and repeated warnings of their declining population from conservationists, federal support that mainly focuses on sage-grouse populations rather than the ecosystem health at large is an inconsistency that Morra cites as potentially detrimental to the long-term health of sage-grouse and the sagebrush ecosystems.

"It's disheartening to witness the challenges we face in achieving long-term sustainability for these ecosystems,” said Morra, whose research focuses on grazing management and soil health. “Regulatory support that considers ecosystem-level effects is crucial for advancing efforts towards preservation and ensuring a healthy future for generations to come."

The bi-state sage-grouse, a variety of the greater sage-grouse that is exclusive to Nevada and California, has had its own share of conservation drama. It is undergoing its third assessment in a decade for potential protection under the Endangered Species Act. With a dwindling population of approximately 3,300 birds, only half of its count 150 years ago, the bi-state sage-grouse continues to confront the same challenges, notably pinyon-juniper encroachment and decreasing viable habitat.

"The plight of the bi-state sage-grouse demonstrates the urgent need for comprehensive conservation action for the species," said Morra. “Scientific findings like this one must be amplified, and regulations need to be aligned with such findings to strike a balance between the needs of ecosystems and those of humans who use them.”

Funding for the project came from the Bureau of Land Management Carson City Nevada District; the Bureau of Land Management Nevada State Office; and the University of Nevada, Reno Great Basin Sagebrush Restoration Fund. Additional support was provided by the Bureau of Land Management through the Soil, Water and Riparian Monitoring and Research in Nevada, as well as the Nevada Forest and Rangeland Research Project: Desatoya Meadows sage-grouse habitat under the Great Basin Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit. The Nevada Department of Wildlife provided fencing installation for the study, and the U.S. Geological Survey helped in collecting sage-grouse data.

William Richardson and a colleague collect grasshopper and beetle samples from traps in the Haypress Meadow Complex in central Nevada in this photo taken by a phenocam.

CREDIT

Photo provided by University of Nevada, Reno, taken by a phenocam.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Environmental Management

DOI

10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.119261 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Shifts in sage-grouse arthropod food sources across grazing and environmental gradients in upland meadow communities