Big sagebrush may need to count on its soil seed bank for survival
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 09:00
in Earth & Climate
Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is a key foundational species in an ecosystem that is threatened by invasion of cheatgrass and the subsequent increase in fire frequency. Critical to the conservation, reestablishment, and restoration of the sagebrush steppe ecosystem (which comprises 63 million hectares of the Great Basin of North America) is understanding the dynamics of A. tridentata seedshow long do they remain viable and are they able to persist in the seed bank for any length of time?