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<br />Biological issues, comment to SWSI, August 2004
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<br />severe impacts of loss of rural inter-town bus and inter-city rail passenger and freight service,
<br />badly damaging elderly and low-income people's mobility.] Freeman's chapter on policy and
<br />organizational issues failing ecosystem needs is a persuasive statement on the mismatches of
<br />costs and benefits, authority and consequences, and the need for loea' managers to have
<br />capacity to apply local knowledge.
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<br />Sopuck's review of sustaining the ecosystems has a Canad;an perspective for once, and
<br />squarely addresses private provision of public goods and issues of who benefits from what.
<br />Knopf and Samson's chapter is strongly recommended, on conserving diversity, with attention
<br />to created landscapes and review of the range of issues. They note that more than 120
<br />agency offices make -daily land use decisionsH in the South Platte headwaters, alone.
<br />Hinckley's review of climate and biota issues U/ustrates the importance of prairie resources,
<br />consequences of groundwater withdrawal and irrigation supply problems threatened with
<br />climate variation, and problems of adaptation. Danielson and Klaas address landscape loss,
<br />conservation and restoration problems, including heterogeneity needs, and large-scale
<br />coordination problems for patch patterns, corridors, and reserves. They argue for large
<br />reserves, in contrast to some others arguing for greater diversity in space and condition from
<br />more small ones; clearly a very unfortunate choice to have to make, and perhaps misleading if
<br />made in the abstract rather than for a particular conservation goal.
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<br />Kothmann's chapter on range management offers suggestions for better outcomes from
<br />larger-scale management options such as herd adjustment options to match forage variation.
<br />Forestry and woodlands are covered by Bratton et aJ., who note the surge in some woodlands
<br />with fire suppression and planting, some of which was 19305 vintage windbreaks now lost to
<br />. center-pivot field consolidation. They are concerned with pioneer riparian trees being
<br />replaced by later successional species in the unnatural flow stabilization regimes, and the
<br />need for management of that situation. .
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<br />Katz, G.L. and P.B. Shafroth, 2003, Biology; Ecology and Management of Eleagnus Angustifolia
<br />L. (Russian Olive) in Western North America. Wetlands 23(4): 763-777. Reviews knowledge
<br />of this invasive species. It is favored by reduced disturbance from flow regulation. They urge
<br />-research on use of flow regimes as a management tool.
<br />l<Iee. G.A., 1991, Conservation of Natural Resources. New York: Prentice Hall.
<br />Knopf, F.L and F.B. Samson, Eds., 1997, Ecoloav and Conservation of Great Plains Vertebrates.
<br />New York: Springer. Along with National Research Council 2002, and Johnson and Bouzsher
<br />1995, a comprehensive examination of scientitic understanding on Great Plains issues.
<br />Reviews issues such as bison partial replacement by cattle in ecological functions (Vinton and
<br />Collins); and importance of wetlands in short grass ecologies; critical role of disturbance
<br />driving events, all chapters; much greater past prominence of ephemeral, temporary and
<br />seasonal wetlands [the mosaic of types] in the region (Laubhan and Frederickson), with <1%
<br />of original grasslands remaining undisturbed and untold wetlands lost as critical landscape
<br />element, including milHons of small depressional wetlands as well as riverine and palustrine
<br />wetlands, drained, converted, dried by groundwater withdrawals, and other changes;
<br />inundation by reservoirs, channel morphology changes, etc., and consequent continental
<br />scales of vegetation composition, due in part to impoverishment of the types of wet/ands as
<br />well as their frequency of existence. For example of importance to vertebrates. of 435 species
<br />of birds known to breed in U.S., 330 have bred in Great Plains, many dependent on wetlands
<br />at some point and many more using them.
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<br />Friedman et al. review water management impacts on cottonwood forest dynamics; compare
<br />with Johnson 1994, 1997. Clear showing of huge increase of cottonwoods and others, but
<br />then changes ensuing with succession of green ash, invasives, and shade-tolerant species
<br />and grasslands as cottonwoods do not recruit as fast as they are lost. Invasives fostered by
<br />current managed flow regime, including Tamarisk and Russian Olive. Bijou Creek example is
<br />discussed. In the opinion of Wiener (author of annotation), this work raises the issue of
<br />important retreat of riparian forests, with relatively sudden large losses of riparian habitat.
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