Livestock grazing is a dominant pressure on the majority of the range and prairie lands in Montana and is capable of modifying wildlife habitat in either positive or negative directions. It is vitally important for rangeland health to understand how arthropod food webs are influenced by these dominant pressures. It is becoming clear that arthropods alone can successfully drive ecosystems and that they are vital to the survival of many other species including game and non-game birds. Therefore it is vital to know, from the bottom up, how various grazing systems alter plant community structure which in turn alters the food resources and thermoregulations sites of arthropods. It is also of equal importance to know, from the top down, how grazing influences different predatory guilds of arthropods which, through hunting strategy alone, can produce a trophic cascade thus altering the arthropod community. Arthropods affect the detritus which in turn influences soil nutrients, which affects the vegetation, which impacts wildlife and their habitats. Our project is based on gathering data on a structural foundation of how, within grazing systems, arthropods influence wildlife populations and habitat.
We are conducting two intertwined projects which investigate how livestock grazing influences arthropods important to both sharp-tailed grouse and greater sage-grouse survival in Montana (MT). Project 1 investigates the MT Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP) recommended three-pasture rest-rotation grazing program as implemented on a private ranch in eastern MT with an FWP conservation easement on it. Project 2 investigates the Sage-Grouse Initiative (SGI) rest-rotation grazing program as implemented on multiple private ranches in central MT.
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Introduction & Background