Community Development in Two Adjacent Pinyon-Juniper Eradication Areas Twenty-Five Years after Treatment! \

The ecological impacts of two 26-year-old pinyon-juniper removal projects—one to provide a transmission line corridor and the other for range improvement purposes—were evaluated by comparison with an adjacent, undisturbed; woodland site in north-central Arizona. In the range improvement project, the trees had been bulldozed to release forage and grasses. Rangeland, avian and mammalian (small and large) assessments of these 2 disturbed woodlands were made to compare them with an undisturbed native woodland. Most tests showed the corridor to be generally different from the native woodland, whilst the range improvement area was not significantly different from either the corridor or the native condition, suggesting that it was in an intermediate stage of development. The bird and mammal populations appeared to develop and change with the vegetation changes, leading to a climax panyon-juniper woodland. |