Lance B. McNew

Montana State University | MSU · Department of Animal and Range Sciences

This open access book reviews the importance of ecological functioning within rangelands considering the complex inter-relationships of production agriculture, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and wildlife habitat.

Rangelands are vast, dynamic, and integral to providing habitat for thousands of vertebrate and invertebrate species, while concurrently serving as the foundation of human food and fiber production in western North America. Reciprocally, wildlife species provide critical services that maintain functional rangeland ecosystems. Therefore, human manag...

Rangeland Wildlife Ecology and Conservation provides a broad array of information on rangeland ecology in association with rangeland-dependent wildlife species. Management of land-use practices from livestock grazing to vegetation manipulation are addressed, as well as ecosystem threats that put the future of rangeland-wildlife at risk. Large-scale...

Prairie grouse, which include greater prairie-chicken ( Tympanuchus cupido ), lesser prairie-chicken ( T. pallidicinctus ), and sharp-tailed grouse ( T . phasianellus ), are species of high conservation concern and have been identified as potential indicator species for various rangeland ecosystems. Greater prairie-chickens are found in scattered p...

Conversion of the North American prairies to cropland remains a prominent threat to grassland bird populations. Yet, a few species nest in these vastly modified systems. Thick-billed longspurs historically nested in recently disturbed or sparsely vegetated patches within native mixed-grass prairie, but observations of longspurs in spring cereal and...

Conversion of the North American prairies to cropland remains a prominent threat to grassland bird populations. Yet, a few species nest in these vastly modified systems. The thick-billed longspur (Rhynchophanes mccownii) is an obligate grassland bird whose populations have declined 4% annually during the past 50 years. Thick-billed longspurs histor...

How to shape the anticipated build‐out of industrial‐scale renewable energy in a way that minimizes risk to wildlife remains contentious. The challenge of balancing wildlife conservation and decarbonization of the electricity sector is well illustrated in the grasslands and shrub‐steppe of North America. Here, several endemic species of grouse are...

Livestock grazing can shape temperate grassland ecosystems, with both positive and negative effects on wildlife documented depending on a variety of grazing and site factors. Historically, research investigating the impacts of livestock grazing on wildlife has been limited by a narrow focus on simple “grazed” vs. “ungrazed” treatments or examining...

Grassland birds are declining faster than any other avian guild in North America and are increasingly a focus of conservation concern. Adaptive, outcome-based management of rangelands could do much to mitigate declines. However, this approach relies on quantitative, generalizable habitat targets that have been difficult to extrapolate from the lite...

Nest survival is a key vital rate of game birds and frequently studied to guide population management. Common scientific protocols are invasive and often involve flushing females from their nests to assess nest contents and status. Biased inference of population dynamics, and thus improper management recommendations, may result if nest survival est...

A literature review of empirical research on the interactions between wind-energy development and grouse (Aves:Tetraoninae) of the North American plains and shrub-steppe.

Urgency and deliberateness are often at odds when executing conservation projects, especially as the scale and complexity of objectives increases. The pace of environmental degradation supports immediate and measurable action. However, best practices for adaptive governance and building resilient social-ecological systems call for more deliberate e...

Dormant season livestock grazing reduces reliance on harvested feeds, but typically requires protein supplementation to maintain animal performance. Individual variation in supplement intake can impact animal performance; however, it is unknown if this variation leads to individual or herd-level effects on grazing behavior, resource utilization, an...

Livestock grazing is a predominant land use worldwide and can influence wildlife populations by altering grassland composition, structure, and productivity. Conceptually, rest‐rotation livestock grazing could increase pasture‐level heterogeneity that would allow wildlife to balance the need for resources with the risk of predation. Prairie‐grouse (...

Habitat selection links individual behavior to population abundance and dynamics, so evaluation of habitat selection is necessary for conservation and management. Land management can potentially alter both the structure and composition of habitats, thus influencing habitat selection and population size. Livestock grazing is the dominant land use wo...

Livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) are an effective tool for limiting livestock depredation by wild and feral predators. Unfortunately, LGDs have bitten hikers, joggers, and mountain bikers. Strategies are needed to mitigate LGD-human conflicts, especially in landscapes inhabited by large, aggressive predators where the threat of livestock depredation...

Grassland bird populations are declining faster than any other avian guild in North America, and promotion of favorable habitat conditions in rangeland breeding cores is important for their maintenance. There is much information on associations between breeding grassland songbirds and vegetation attributes. However, previous results have been diffi...

Survival estimation is critical to studies of wildlife population biology and recent model developments allow for temporal covariates on mortality risk. To test model assumptions that scavengers do not influence either perceived mortality cause or location, we placed 24 radio-marked Chukar (Alectoris chukar) carcasses randomly over gradients of gra...

Many grassland species coevolved with large herbivores and require habitats along the entire structural gradient created by grazing. Widespread declines of grassland birds, however, have prompted concerns about rangeland management. Conceptually, rest-rotation grazing functions as a conservation strategy to mimic historic disturbance regimes and cr...

Grassland birds have undergone substantial population declines throughout much of their historic ranges in North America. Most of the remaining grassland bird habitat is restricted to rangelands managed for livestock production, so grazing management has strong implications for grassland bird conservation efforts. We conducted 1,830 point-count sur...

Grazing dormant forage under low-input heifer development strategies typically exposes cattle to low-quality forage. Protein supplementation while grazing dormant range can enhance heifer growth and reproductive performance. We examined resource utilization of heifers and the effects of dormant season grazing on residual vegetation characteristics...

Recognition that beavers are integral components of stream ecosystems has resulted in an increase in beaver‐mediated habitat restoration projects. Beaver restoration projects are frequently implemented in degraded stream systems with little or no beaver activity. However, selection of restoration sites is often based on habitat suitability research...

Grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) conflicts with humans, including livestock depredation on public land grazing allotments, have increased during the last several decades within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) in the western United States as the grizzly bear population has grown in number and occupied range. Minimizing conflicts and improving con...

Sharp-tailed grouse Tympanuchus phasianellus were effectively extirpated from western Montana during the last century as a result of settlement by Euro-Americans. Recent interest in reestablishing the species west of the Continental Divide has identified information gaps related to the potential success of a restoration effort. Elsewhere, sharp-tai...

Fragmentation and degraded habitat conditions can result in increased competition for critical resources, altered mating systems, and can eventually result in population declines or extinction. We investigated the degree to which habitat degradation and habitat loss impacted the breeding ecology of Greater Prairie-Chickens at 3 study sites across r...

Selection of nest sites directly influences reproductive success for Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus); thus, regional evaluation of how this species selects nest sites is necessary for effective habitat management. We evaluated fine-scale nest site selection of Greater Sage-Grouse in the Centennial Valley of southwest Montana. We con...

Identifying relationships between habitat selection and population processes is important for habitat management and wildlife conservation. For prairie-obligate species, space use and demography in extant grasslands are influenced by habitat conditions caused by rangeland management practices associated with livestock production. Greater prairie-ch...

Acoustic recorders can be useful for studying bird populations but their efficiency and accuracy should be assessed in pertinent ecological settings before use. We investigated the utility of an acoustic recorder for monitoring abundance of tundra-breeding birds relative to point-count surveys in northwestern Alaska, USA, during 2014. Our objective...

Avian point-count surveys are typically designed to occur during periods when birds are consistently active and singing, but seasonal and diurnal patterns of detection probability are often not well understood and may vary regionally or between years. We deployed autonomous acoustic recorders to assess how avian availability for detection (i.e., th...

Climate change is facilitating rapid changes in the composition and distribution of vegetation at northern latitudes, raising questions about the responses of wildlife that rely on arctic ecosystems. One widely observed change occurring in arctic tundra ecosystems is an increasing dominance of deciduous shrub vegetation. Our goals were to examine t...

Description of vegetation metrics recorded at point count stations. (DOCX)

Summary of species recorded, ordered by total observations. (DOCX)

Coefficients and standard errors for habitat covariates in final models of abundance. (DOCX)

Coefficients, standard errors, and p-values for covariates explaining detection probability (Pd) in final models of bird abundance; estimated detection probability in average conditions. (DOCX)

Correlation assessment for four covariates used in analysis of bird abundance. (DOCX)

ΔAIC values comparing five models for each habitat covariate relative to abundance. (DOCX)

Infectious diseases increasingly play a role in the decline of wildlife populations. Vector-borne diseases, in particular, have been implicated in mass mortality events and localized population declines are threatening some species with extinction. Transmission patterns for vector-borne diseases are influenced by the spatial distribution of vectors...

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Nest attendance behavior is a critical component of avian ecology that influences nest survival and population productivity. Birds that provide uniparental care during incubation and brood-rearing must balance the benefit of reproductive success with the costs of physiological needs and predation risk. We used miniature nest cameras to record 5904...

Conservation of wildlife depends on an understanding of the interactions between animal movements and key landscape factors. Habitat requirements of wide-ranging species often vary spatially, but quantitative assessment of variation among replicated studies at multiple sites is rare. We investigated patterns of space use for 10 populations of two c...

Nest attendance behavior is a critical but understudied component of avian ecology. Uniparental grouse must balance the benefit of potential reproductive success with the costs of predation risk and physiological requirements for themselves (future reproductive potential) and offspring (current reproductive potential). We used video cameras to reco...

Renewable energy resources have received increased attention because of impacts of fossil fuels on global climate change. In Kansas, USA, optimal sites for wind energy development often overlap with preferred habitats of the Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido), a lek-mating prairie grouse of conservation concern. We tested for potential ef...

Population declines of grassland birds over the past 30 yr have followed the widespread implementation of intensive rangeland management practices that create homogenous grassland habitats. Patch-burn grazing (PBG) was tested as an alternative management technique that is ecologically similar to historically heterogeneous fire and grazing regimes a...

Accurate estimates of species richness are necessary to test predictions of ecological theory and evaluate biodiversity for conservation purposes. However, species richness is difficult to measure in the field because some species will almost always be overlooked due to their cryptic nature or the observer's failure to perceive their cues. Common m...

1. We investigated the impacts of rangeland management practices on the diversity, density, and nest survival of grassland songbirds and on the demography, habitat selection, and population viability of Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido). Our study site was located in eastcentral Kansas and included portions of Chase, Greenwood, Lyon, an...

Background/Question/Methods: Boreal and arctic regions of Alaska are experiencing rapid warming compared to the other parts of the world. Changes in temperature and precipitation regimes are causing changes in ecosystem structures and functions such as, increased thawing of permafrost, higher rates of disturbance events, and the northward expansi...

The potential effects of wind energy development on wildlife have received increased attention over the past decade. In Kansas, optimal sites for wind energy development often overlap with preferred habitats of greater prairie‐chickens T ympanuchus cupido . Our goal was to determine whether wind energy development affected survival of female prairi...

Multicollinearity analyses of predictor variables (Appendix S1), methods for the selection of starting models at each spatial scale for nest site selection (Appendix S2) and nest survival (Appendix S4), and assessment of nonlinearity in ecological responses (Appendix S3) are available on-line. The authors are solely responsible for the content and...

Wind energy is targeted to meet 20% of U.S. energy needs by 2030, but new sites for development of renewable energy may overlap with important habitats of declining populations of grassland birds. Greater Prairie‐Chickens ( Tympanuchus cupido ) are an obligate grassland bird species predicted to respond negatively to energy development. We used a m...

Wind energy development is targeted to meet 20% of U. S. energy demand by 2030. In Kansas, optimal sites for wind energy development often overlap with preferred habitats of Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido), a lek-mating species of prairie grouse with declining populations. Our goal was to use movement data from radio telemetry to inve...

Partitioning of ecological niche is expected in lekking species that show marked sexual size dimorphism as a consequence of sex-specific ecological constraints. However, niche partitioning is uncertain in species with moderate sexual dimorphism. In addition, the ecological niche of a species may also be affected by landscape composition; particular...

Ecological relationships of animals and their environments are known to vary spatially and temporally across scales. However, common approaches for evaluating resource selection by animals assume that the processes of habitat selection are stationary across space. The assumption that habitat selection is spatially homogeneous may lead to biased inf...

Executive Summary 1. We investigated the impacts of wind power development on the demography, movements, and population genetics of Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) at three sites in northcentral and eastern Kansas for a 7-year period. Only 1 of 3 sites was developed for wind power, the 201MW Meridan Way Wind Power Facility at the Smok...

Intensification of rangeland management has coincided with population declines among obligate grassland species in the largest remaining tallgrass prairie in North America, although causes of declines remain unknown. We modeled population dynamics and conducted sensitivity analyses from demographic data collected for an obligate grassland bird that...

Production of a second brood, or double brooding, by a single female in one breeding season has not been reported for any species of grouse in North America. We describe the breeding history of one of 55 radio-marked female Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) that successfully renested after losing a brood from a first nesting attempt dur...

We investigated the site occupancy dynamics of greater prairie-chickens at Konza Prairie Biological Station, a protected site in northeastern Kansas that is managed for ecological research. We surveyed the site during mid-Mar to mid-May, 1981–2008, and recorded detections of birds in a grid of 6.3 ha survey plots (n = 187 plots). We used multiseaso...

Abstract. Greater Prairie-Chickens ( Tympanuchus cupido) are a lek-mating prairie grouse of the central Great Plains. Males gather each spring at communal display grounds or leks to compete for mating opportunities with females, and lek sites are essential for the reproductive biology of prairie- chickens. We obtained geographic coordinates for 166...

Predation, food, climate, and other environmental factors have a significant influ-ence on selection processes and evolution of vertebrate life-history traits. Growing evidence indicates that human activities can also affect evo-lutionary processes by a range of mechanisms, including impacts on life-history traits mediated by the effects of habitat...

We conducted a three-year study of the breeding chronology of Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) to determine seasonal pat-terns of lek attendance and clutch initiation, and the duration of egg-laying and incubation for birds at the core of the species distribution. Our field study included three sites differing in landscape composition...

We used radiotelemetry to estimate natal dispersal patterns and survival rates of 13 yearling and 19 subadult beavers (Castor canadensis) at two geomorphologically different sites in southern Illinois. Overall, we observed a 55% dispersal rate for yearlings and a 73% dispersal rate for subadults. Normally, juveniles (yearlings + subadults) initiate...