Special Issue: Targeted Woodland Removal to Recover at-Risk Grouse and Their Sagebrush-Steppe and Prairie Ecosystems

Threats vary in intensity across the region, but the most extensive top-down stressors impacting these shrub and grassland ecosystems include conversion of native rangelands to row crop agriculture, residential subdivision, energy, mining and other industrial developments, woodland expansion, type conversion from native vegetation to invasive species, and altered wildfire regimes (US Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] 2013). Newly signed land use plans are designed to guide future human infrastructure outside of Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter "sage-grouse") and Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus; "prairie-chicken") strongholds, and voluntary and incentive-based conservation actions help improve habitat quality (i.e., habitat restoration) and reduce habitat loss (e.g., easements) to human development and row crop agriculture (Copeland et al., 2014; Van Pelt et al., 2015).