Landscape-Scale Changes in Plant Species Abundance and Biodiversity of a Sagebrush Steppe Over 45 Years

Increasing demands on arid and semiarid ecosystems, which comprise one-third of Earth's terrestrial environment, create an urgent need to understand their biodiversity, function, and mechanisms of change. Sagebrush (Artemisia) steppe, the largest semiarid vegetation type in North America, is endangered because of losses to agriculture, excessive grazing, and invasive species. Establishment in 1950 of what is now designated as the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (southeastern Idaho, USA) created the largest existing reserve of this extensive vegetation type. We used cover, density, and frequency data for vascular plants sampled on 79 permanent plots nine times during 45 years to (1) assess long-term changes in abundance and distribution of major species and life forms, (2) assess changes in species richness and plot similarity, and (3) test the hypotheses that plant cover and stability of cover are positively associated with species richness and that invasibility is inversely related to native plant cover and richness. From 1933 through 1957 the area was subject to severe drought, with annual precipitation exceeding the long-term mean only four times. Cover of shrubs plus perennial grasses was 18% in 1950, and the vegetation was heavily dominated by sagebrush. Perennial grass cover was only 0.5%. With elevated precipitation after 1957, shrub cover increased to 25% by 1965, and by 1975 cover of perennial grasses had increased 13-fold. Subsequent fluctuations in cover did not track precipitation closely. Cover and density of major species were often out of phase, and correlation analyses indicated lags of 2–5 yr in responses of species or functional groups to precipitation. Aggregate species richness of the area has not changed appreciably, but richness of shrubs, perennial grasses, and forbs per plot steadily increased from 1950 to 1995. Vegetative heterogeneity also increased, with mean similarity among plots declining from 72% to 40%. Plots having higher species richness tended to maintain higher levels of cover and to vary less in cover relative to their mean level, indicating links between species richness and function. Abundance of nonnative species was negatively correlated with cover, but not with richness of native species. Thus, adequate cover of native species can render these semiarid communities more resistant to invasion. Maintaining richness and cover of native species should be a high management priority for these ecosystems.