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• Over this ten year period of record, it can be seen that there was an apparent peak of cover at <br />the beginning, after which a large sag corresponding to drought conditions occurred; after ten <br />years, and six years after the "end" of drought conditions, cover has yet to reach the 1987 <br />levels. Wadge Pasture, the only individual reclaimed area to be sampled each year since 1988, <br />has shown a similar pattern, but has stayed at a higher level than the overall average. The <br />reference area data also show that cover values in 1987 and 1988 were the highest of the ten <br />year record in both reclaimed and reference areas and that values since then have not returned <br />to those levels. <br />The 1989 average vegetation cover reflected a reduction of 24 percentage points from the <br />vegetation cover measured in 1987. The change in cover from 1987 to 1989 for the Sagebrush <br />Reference Area was nearly the same as the reclaimed areas (approximately 25 percentage <br />points). In 1990, the overall reclaimed area average rebounded by about 12 percent, while the <br />Sagebrush Reference Area recovered by 9 percent. In 1991, the Sagebrush Reference Area <br />cover increased by over 6 percent, while the reclaimed area average went up by about 5 <br />percent. In 1992, the Sagebrush Reference Area declined by about 11 percent while the overall <br />• average dropped by about 8 percent. In 1993, the increase in cover in the reclaimed areas was <br />accompanied by a slight increase in the Sagebrush Reference Area and a rather large jump in the <br />Mountain Brush Reference Area. In 1994, the average reclaimed area cover declined by about <br />10 percent, while cover in the Sagebrush Reference Area declined by about 4 percent. In 1995, <br />average reclaimed area cover increased by about 13 percent, while Sagebrush Reference Area <br />cover rose by 6 percent. In 1996, cover in the Sagebrush Reference Area dropped by 5.6 <br />percent while the overall average dropped by 10.7 percent. Over the period of record, <br />including 1996, there has been a clear pattern in which cover in the reclaimed areas has varied <br />similarly to cover in the Sagebrush Reference Area, which is more like the reclaimed areas in <br />that it has greater herbaceous cover than does the Mountain Brush Reference Area. This, along <br />with the prevalence of sagebrush and snowberry, suggests successional development of <br />reclaimed areas toward the Sagebrush vegetation type. If reclaimed areas first achieve the <br />greatest resemblance to the Sagebrush vegetation type, this is not to predict that they may not <br />proceed through further succession toward composition more closely approximating Mountain <br />Brush in time. <br /> <br />17 <br />