Jornada Trails
Volume 7, Issue 2, November 2001
Contents:
Seeing With New Eyes: Remote Sensing Yields Insight Into Jornada History
by Dr. Al Rango, USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range
Editor’s note: Al Rango recently joined the staff at the Jornada Experiment Range after beginning research here several years ago as a scientist with the ARS Hydrology Laboratory in Beltsville, Md. The following is his firsthand account of bringing new perspectives to bear on features of the landscape that have long puzzled many of the rest of us.
In 2000, I spent a sabbatical at the Jornada Experimental Range, and while in residence I was able to examine some aerial photos from 1937, 1974, and 1986. It was apparent that land cover had changed greatly in fifty years, and there were unusual features that could not be accounted for by grazing pattern and pasture boundaries. These features were tentatively identified as rangeland remediation treatments. To confirm that they were treatments and to monitor their change with time, I sought out additional aerial photography from air photo archiving facilities.
There are three such major archives--the National Archives in Washington, D.C., the USGS EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, S.D., and the USDA Aerial Photo Field Office in Salt Lake City, Ut. Small archives, like the one at Whittier College, also had pertinent data.
Eventually data were obtained for all or parts of the Jornada Basin for the years 1935, 1936, 1937, 1947, 1948, 1955, 1960, 1963, 1967, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1986, 1991, 1996, and 1998.
Analysis of these data has permitted temporal viewing and assessment of the longevity of rangeland treatments. These include the parallel pattern of grubbed strips (removal of creosote and mesquite shrubs in 1936 by Civilian Conservation Corps labor) on the Chihuahuan Desert Rangeland Research Center (see photo, page 1), and clear identification of water-ponding dikes.
These last may be the most effective rangeland treatment; that is, these dikes may result in greater, and longer-lasting, modification of vegetation than many of the more "intensive" remediation approaches.
More data, including military air photos, are currently being acquired from these archives and other sources. Approximately 3000 historical aerial photos will eventually be acquired for the Jornada Basin.
These data are being digitized and indexed; in the future, researchers will be able to search an interactive database for aerial photography covering their current or proposed study sites.
Friends of the Jornada Gather Again
by Dr. William H. Schlesinger, Duke University
More than 100 scientists, land managers, and Chihuahuan desert naturalists gathered on July 12 for the Eleventh Annual Friends of the Jornada Symposium at New Mexico State University. With a special format this year, featuring a smaller selection of oral presentations, the symposium also featured more than 40 posters reporting on a broad range of activities by student and faculty researchers.
A keynote presentation by Harold Dregne of Texas Tech University captured the theme of the symposium--how do we recognize when the degradation of arid lands has passed a point of no return? Dr. Dregne, perhaps the world’s leading expert on arid land degradation, has testified before a variety of national and United Nations committees concerned with desertification and with estimates of the area of degraded land worldwide. His call for studies of threshold responses was echoed in presentations by Brandon Bestelmeyer (USDA/ARS) and Tony Parsons (University of Leicester, Geography), who provided specific examples of non-linear responses of vegetation and soils in Chihuahuan Desert ecosystems.
Laura Huenneke and Debra Finch discussed their current studies of biodiversity in the Chihuahuan Desert--Huenneke focusing on the variety of human-induced stresses affecting plant diversity in the region, and Finch giving an overview of the current U.S. Forest Service Program to understand changes in the biodiversity of New Mexico’s plants and animals.
Special insights to the mechanisms of plant establishment were offered by Laurie Abbott (NMSU, Animal and Range Science), who reviewed her field studies of plant demography in relation to variations in rainfall in the Chihuahuan desert. Her work showed the critical role of rainfall in the early germination and establishment of desert plants.
Several presentations evaluated the Jornada Basin in the context of regional assessments of water supply (Al Rango, USDA) and the economics of the livestock industry (Ed Fredrickson, USDA). Both presentations offered stark reminders that landscape change in the Basin is often driven by decisions made many miles away.
The formal symposium ended with a presentation by Curtis Monger (NMSU, Agronomy), showing dramatic satellite views of eolian transport in the Jornada Basin and describing how understanding these processes is key to understanding soil development in the region.
Symposium participants and many family members then gathered at the Headquarters Ranch for an evening barbecue under the setting New Mexico sun. Jornada-grown beef was enjoyed by one and all, who look forward to the twelfth annual gathering next year.
Jornada Basin Scientists Lead Scaling Workshops
by Dr. Debra Peters, USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range
A series of workshops related to extrapolating information across multiple spatial and temporal scales has been conducted over the past 13 months with support from the LTER Network office. Three workshops held during the 2000 LTER All Scientists meeting in Snowbird, Ut., provided the foundation for developing a network of researchers interested in scaling information from plots to landscapes, regions, and the globe.
A continuation workshop held in April 2001 and three working group meetings to be held over the next several months have promoted the coalescence of these participants into an integrative group. This group represents a broad range of terrestrial ecosystem types (forests, grasslands, deserts, ecotones), levels of organization (populations, communities, ecosystems), focus of study (plants, animals, soils, climate, and their feedbacks), and approach (experimentalists, theoreticians, and simulation modelers).
This integrative group has the potential to address a range of issues involved in working with landscapes, and to develop general scaling relationships and guidelines for new research. Four manuscripts are being written as part of this effort, and a symposium was submitted for inclusion in the 2002 ESA meetings.
Jornada LTER researchers Debra Peters, Jeff Herrick, Kris Havstad, and Curtis Monger have been instrumental in leading this effort.
EPA-funded Project Focuses on Carbon Sequestration
by Dr. Curtis Monger, New Mexico State University
A research and outreach project entitled "Carbon Sequestration Potential of Southwestern Rangelands" will measure and model carbon storage in plants and soils of arid grasslands and shrublands in New Mexico. Funding for the project has been provided by an EPA special grant to Principal Investigators Dr. Curtis Monger (NMSU, LTER), Dr. Debra Peters (USDA-ARS, LTER), Dr. Jeff Herrick (USDA-ARS, LTER) and Dr. John Harrington (NMSU Mora Research Center).
Grant funding will be used to purchase a carbon–nitrogen elemental analyzer mass spectrometer, which will be a valuable addition to current and future Jornada LTER research. Funding will also support staffing and computer equipment needed to develop regional-scale simulation models for the prediction of future carbon dynamics.
Research results will be integrated into ongoing USDA-ARS outreach programs designed to assist ranchers in understanding management-induced vegetation changes and their effects on net carbon sequestration.
Monger Receives Teaching Award
by Dr. Laura Huenneke, New Mexico State University
Excellent research scientists are often excellent teachers as well, and Jornada investigators are living examples. Dr. H. Curtis Monger received the 2001 Donald Roush Award for Teaching Excellence from New Mexico State University earlier this year, in recognition of his superb performance in undergraduate and graduate courses.
Monger is a supportive and constructive graduate mentor as well as an effective classroom instructor. Those of us who have heard him make presentations to the general public can testify to his ability to communicate the poetry, as well as the science, of his view of the desert landscape.
In spring 2001, Monger and Laura Huenneke designed and team-taught a graduate course that used Jornada research publications to illustrate important concepts and questions about desert ecosystems; student response was enthusiastic.
Congratulations to Curtis for earning this honor and recognition.
| 
