Working Ranch April/May 2025

map ecological states. It uses graph ics to illustrate how to determine the ecological state using a color-coded system representing threats. This six-step process outlines the threat-based land management framework: 1. This framework uses functional groups to categorize current vegetation and focus manag ers on the critical relationship between perennial bunch grasses, site availability, and primary threats. 2. The guide discusses primary threats, their landscape context, and why simplified state-and-transition models help sort different vegetation conditions into categories rele vant to management. introduce nine distinct ecolog ical states, teach practitioners how to use them, and discuss implications at different man agement scales. 5. The fifth step introduces an 3./4. The third and fourth steps apparent trend, a method to quickly assess whether a site’s trajectory is moving downward to less desirable conditions, remaining stable, or moving upward to favored ecological conditions. 6. The sixth step connects the framework to management decision-making and explores adaptive management tools and sage-grouse habitat requirements. This step is not intended to be prescriptive but rather to provide an approach to making decisions. “Our framework is not a stand alone tool,” the guide notes. “It sup ports a toolbox of products for assess ing biotic and abiotic conditions (two essential factors responsible for shaping the ecosystem) at multiple scales. Managers are most effective when interpreting current biotic information with abiotic site poten tial and performance indicators. Our APRIL / MAY 2025 I 39

the summer, providing continuous, dry fuel for wildfire to spread,” authors noted. “This creates a positive feed back loop in which the annuals alter the environment to their advantage. What once was a perennial community with burns every 50 to 150 years has become an annual community with burns every one to five years. To break this fire-annual grass cycle, we must work to conserve and promote bunch grasses in the sagebrush steppe.” As members of an OSU research team, Schroeder, Johnson, and the team partnered with SageSHARE to create a Threat-based Management System framework that assists range managers in recognizing patterns and problems affecting rangelands, including sagebrush seas and bunch grass hues, annual grass patches, and juniper woodlands. This management process is based on Albert Einstein’s principle that “our perception of space is relative to the speed at which we move through it.” This framework was initially created to assess habitat suitability for greater sage-grouse by identifying threats to the species and implementing appropriate conservation measures to achieve species-specific manage ment goals. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service currently uses an adapted version for sage-grouse-specific can didate conservation agreements on private and public lands in Oregon. The Oregon Greater Sage-Grouse State Action Plan uses an adapted version of this framework for its mitigation and development programs in sagebrush ecosystems. This framework serves as an ecosystem assessment and man agement tool useful in multiple man agement scenarios. Understanding how this framework can support sage grouse-specific conservation efforts and tools remains important. OSU’s research team developed multiple publications addressing rangeland and sagebrush manage ment issues, which are designed for rangeland managers, profession als, and stewards. In “Threat-Based Land Management in the Northern

Great Basin: A Manager’s Guide,” we read, “Grazing management in sage brush country is akin to walking a tightrope. It requires constant input and adjustment to maintain equilib rium. Grazing managers must con tinually assess conditions and adjust to balance forage needs with an ever-changing supply.” OSU’s team modified Einstein’s space principle “into a new take on land management: Our perception and understanding of the natural world depends on how fast we travel across the landscape. Walking slowly through the sagebrush, we can notice an ant trail and the species of the forb leaves they carry. We see richness and nuance, complexity and diversity. But when covering hundreds or thousands of acres, we don’t have the luxury of going slow. Management at these scales requires us to move faster, and as we do, the landscape blurs and details grow coarse. We need to find the right ratio of area to detail.” The threat-based land management framework was built on the premise that primary ecosystem threats must be assessment and management prior ities. Changes occur yearly in the form of events such as large-scale wild fires, which can erase all small-scale restoration gains and quickly make knowledge of site composition and conditions obsolete. An effective man agement response to any significant change must be fast and focused on primary threats before implementing finer-scale and localized endeavors. The threat-based management guide ( https://extension.oregonstate. edu/sites/extd8/files/documents/ pnw722.pdf ) “presents an ecosystem framework to prioritize the primary threats to intact upland sagebrush rangelands: annual grass invasion, conifer woodland expansion, and associated wildfire relationships. A single model of nine distinct eco logical states represents a spectrum from intact native plant communi ties to those converted by primary threats.” A corresponding field guide was designed to help practitioners