Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Old Business Meeting opened by Tamzen Stringham on October 4 at 9:00 am at the University of California Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center. The minutes of the 2006 WERA minutes were read. Pat Johnson moved and Barry Perryman seconded acceptance of minutes. Thanks go to Clayton Marlow for coordinating arrangements for the meeting and the excellent field tour at Billings, MT in November 2006. Jim Jacobs our Administrative Advisor will no longer serve as our Advisor after 2007. The WERA 40 committee will need a new Administrative Advisor. The format of the minutes and reports must be stream-lined to include: Participants Accomplishments Impacts New Business 2008 Meeting Location. The committee considered conducting joint meeting with WERA 108 Rangeland West committee. Jim Jacobs informed the committee that a short petition would be required for a March 2008 meeting to coincide with WERA108. The concern expressed regarding a joint meeting with WERA 108 was that most time spent at WERA108 was computer work. Barry Perryman and others emphasized that one of the greatest values of WERA 40 meetings was the rangeland field trips. The committee then considered organizing a joint meeting with WERA 21 (Revegetation and Stabilization of Deteriorated and Altered Lands) for the 2008 meeting. Dave Pyke is on the WERA 21 committee and organizing a field trip for the WERA 21 meeting next year. Maria Fernández-Giménez and Derek Bailey volunteered to help organize a fall 2008 meeting in Colorado. Dave Pyke agreed to coordinate a joint meeting in Colorado with WERA 21. In the event that Colorado cannot host the 2008 WERA 40 meeting, Derek Bailey agreed to pursue Tucson, AZ as a location. Elections. Pat Johnson made a motion to nominate Lance Vermeire as secretary for 2008. Barry Perryman seconded the motion. Increasing WERA 40 participation. Tamzen Stringham suggested that participants personally invite people to attend future WERA 40 meetings. The committee also suggested sending the WERA 40 minutes to: Jim Dobrowolski, USDA CSREES; Leonard Jolley, NRCS; Cindy McArthur, USFS; Linda Coates-Markel, BLM Tamzen Stringham and other committee members will personally invite these individuals after the minutes have been sent. Rangeland Health evaluation. The committee expressed concerns with how the Rangeland Health evaluation procedures are being implemented by some range technicians. The possibility of an SRM certification course or a 1-week course for undergraduates was discussed. The committee recommended that the language on the page 1 of the Technical Reference 1734-6 "Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health" be made stronger. Rangeland PhD programs. The committee was concerned with the lack of PhD graduates with a rangeland focused study versus ecological focus study. More discussion on this topic is needed. White Paper to SRM Advisory Council. In 2006, the WERA 40 committee proposed developing a white paper to influence funding from CSREES for ecological and threshold identification. To the 2007 meeting participants' best recollection, no white paper was prepared but there were discussions with the SRM Advisory Council regarding STMs. Follow up with Clayton Marlow to learn the status of the white paper. International Rangeland and Grassland Congress. Maria Fernández-Giménez plans to attend the joint meeting of the International Rangeland and Grassland Congress in China in 2008. Although it is past the deadline date, she will try to take a poster on STMs to the meeting. Potential 2010 Symposium. In 2006, the WERA 40 committee proposed symposium for 2010 focusing on the repair of damaged processes and the maintenance of functional processes. Discussions regarding this symposium were still positive. Concerns with review and editorial process of Rangeland Ecology and Management. Several WERA participants were concerned with the timeliness and quality of scientific critique of manuscripts submitted to Rangeland Ecology and Management. Valid non-traditional, statistical approaches should be considered. Derek Bailey and Mike Smith are on the Associate Editor Board and will relay these concerns at the 2008 SRM meeting in Louisville. Thanks to Jim Jacobs! The WERA 40 committee would like to express our gratitude to Jim Jacobs for serving as our Administrative Advisor. Station Reports (full reports are attached) University of Wyoming reported by Mike Smith. "Hard core range" faculty are growing old. Quentin Skinner may retire in March 2008. This is the last year that Dan Rogers will teach. Only a few range graduate students. Move to ecology faculty. Washington State University reported by Linda Hardesty. A new president has been hired at Washington State University (WSU). The president made new requests for excellence in Animal Health with increased emphasis on competitive grants and classical animal science. There is no range program at WSU. A new riparian ecologist will be hired at WSU. Linda is conducting research on pygmy rabbit recovery, canary grass, and cheatgrass. South Dakota State University reported by Pat Johnson. There are three programs in Animal and Range. Four range faculty at SDSU. A new Dean has been hired. Facilities at Cottonwood and Antelope Research Stations will be improved with new 0.5 million appropriation to each station. There are 45 undergraduates and five MS students. US Geological Survey reported by Dave Pyke. USGS rangeland activities include sagegrouse habitat and sagebrush ecosystem research. They are very concerned with transition of shrublands to annual grasslands (cheatgrass). They will be hiring a new range fire ecology position. A new interest is to identify the best approaches to monitor livestock impacts on BLM lands that will allow them to scale up from allotments to regions. See attached report. New Mexico State University reported by Derek Bailey. Seven academic faculty plus three extension faculty. Undergraduate enrollment increasing due to recruitment efforts by Jerry Holechek. Virtually 100% employment for undergraduates in range. See attached report. University of California, Davis reported by Mel George. Range faculty at UC Davis are limited with many involved in other projects. Fifteen farm advisors in range of which three have PhDs. Mel George is developing a long-distance grazing management class. UC Berkley is promoting working landscapes with grazing as a goal. Oregon State University reported by Tamzen Stringham. OSU is in flux. Mike Borman is the interim department head. OSU will begin a new range department head search. John Buckhouse is not teaching now and may retire soon. There are 45 range undergraduates. Tamzen Stringham currently has most of the range graduate students (currently 8). Colorado State University reported by Maria Fernández-Giménez. Range is a program within a department. CSU is searching for a new department head. There are 6-10 range faculty of which three are new. There are 22 range majors. See attached report. University of Nevada, Reno reported by Barry Perryman. Two programs at UNR with range interests: Natural Resources and Ecology and Animal BioTechnology. Twelve to 15 range students in Animal Technology program. UNR is filling an endowed position in range.

1) Organized a symposium for the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Society for Range Management in Louisville, Kentucky entitled State-and-Transition Models: Triggers, Feedbacks and Thresholds for January 29, 2008. This symposium presents recent advancements in Site and Transition Models (STMs) including the concepts of ecological resilience, triggers and feedback mechanisms that strengthen the potential for STMs to capture a broader set of relevant information for anticipating and identifying variables and conditions that drive ecosystem dynamics. (An agenda for the symposium is attached). 2) A Riparian Ecological Theory Development Workshop was held August 13-17, 2007 at Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Workshop involved selected NRCS grazing lands specialists and scientists, researchers, professors from universities, and the Agricultural Research Service. This Workshop was designed to allow the research and scientific community to communicate with NRCS on how riparian ecology can be addressed when developing State and Transition models for ecological sites. Discussions and decisions allowed NRCS to better refine riparian theory concepts and will support management recommendations to producers. 3) General state & transition models for the most common upland ecological sites within the Major Land Resource Areas 23 and 24 will be developed by Tamzen Stringham for use by NRCS. Development of these academically peer reviewed models will facilitate the entry of data into the ESD program and will immediately be useful to field office operations, technical service providers, state and federal land management agencies, and other users. 4) General state & transition models for upland ecological sites within the Major Land Resource Areas B10 have been completed by Tamzen Stringham and delivered to NRCS. 5) General state & transition models for the California annual grasslands have been completed by Mel George with assistance from others in University of California Cooperative Extension. 6) David Briske, Brandon Bestelmeyer and Tamzen Stringham prepared a manuscript that describes conceptual improvements to Site and Transition Model framework. The paper has been accepted by Rangeland Ecology and Management with minor revisions. 7) Maria Fernández-Giménez is conducting a project that seeks to underpin the state-and-transition model (STMs) framework with a network of long-term empirical data. Research objectives of the project are to 1) explore new protocols to construct STMs that are based on empirical ecological data, 2) investigate the ecological validity of existing qualitative STMs by comparing them with data-based models, and 3) evaluate the decision rules and assumptions that various authors utilize to construct STMs. 8) Maria Fernández-Giménez is conducting a project to develop Site and Transition Models (STMs) based on ecological field data and professional and local knowledge, using qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques. A participatory stakeholder process will be used to compare and evaluate the accuracy and utility of STMs based on different knowledge sources and data analysis approaches, and to develop best-fit models that combine local knowledge and field data. The project will promote adoption of STMs through: a) direct stakeholder participation in workshops to develop and evaluate STMs, b) partnerships with local and state-wide organizations to integrate STMs into existing producer and manager workshops, short-courses, and publications, c) incorporation of STMs models into NRCS site descriptions, and d) publication of the STMs and a handbook describing their development and use on the Colorado Rangelands and Rangelands West websites.