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Wildlife, Animals, and Plants |
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DISTRIBUTION AND OCCURRENCE
GENERAL DISTRIBUTION:North to south, shadscale is distributed from Oregon to Mexico [129]. It occurs from western Texas northwest to California, Oregon, and Montana, and northeast from Texas to North Dakota [57]. The greatest shadscale concentration is found within the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau [86]. The PLANTS database provides a distributional map of shadscale.
ECOSYSTEMS [65]:FRES21 Ponderosa pine FRES29 Sagebrush FRES30 Desert shrub FRES35 Pinyon-juniper FRES40 Desert grasslands
STATES:
BLM PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS [12]:5 Columbia Plateau 6 Upper Basin and Range 7 Lower Basin and Range 8 Northern Rocky Mountains 9 Middle Rocky Mountains 10 Wyoming Basin 11 Southern Rocky Mountains 12 Colorado Plateau 13 Rocky Mountain Piedmont 14 Great Plains
KUCHLER [99] PLANT ASSOCIATIONS:K016 Eastern ponderosa forest K023 Juniper-pinyon woodland K038 Great Basin sagebrush K039 Blackbrush K040 Saltbush-greasewood K041 Creosote bush K046 Desert: vegetation largely lacking
SAF COVER TYPES [60]:237 Interior ponderosa pine 238 Western juniper 239 Pinyon-juniper
SRM (RANGELAND) COVER TYPES [133]:211 Creosotebush scrub 403 Wyoming big sagebrush 405 Black sagebrush 408 Other sagebrush types 412 Juniper-pinyon woodland 414 Salt desert shrub 501 Saltbush-greasewood 506 Creosotebush-bursage 508 Creosotebush-tarbush
HABITAT TYPES AND PLANT COMMUNITIES:Shadscale inhabits both warm and cold deserts [128] and is indicative of salt-desert shrub communities. The majority of shadscale salt-desert shrub communities occur in southern and southwestern parts of the Intermountain Region. Isolated communities are found in eastern Oregon, southern Idaho, and southwestern Wyoming [21]. Shadscale scrub is a major community within the Mohave Desert [115]. The shadscale zone of the Intermountain West is most often the lowest and most arid region [95]. Little understory is usually present, and overstory shrubs are widely spaced. According to Holmgren and Hutchings [81], 5 to 15% of the ground is shaded by living plant cover. Knapp [95] reports plant cover in the shadscale zone of the Intermountain West is sparse, typically less than 20%. Shadscale covers extensive regions within the salt-desert shrublands of the Great Basin [55]. The majority of shadscale communities occur below the highest historical levels of pluvial lakes [158]. Shadscale forms almost pure stands in valley bottoms and is mixed with other shrubs and grasses on higher slopes [85]. Shadscale communities of the Great Basin form an "irregular" band between a relatively cooler and moister sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) zone to the north and a creosotebush (Larrea tridentata) zone to the south [104]. Arizona: Shadscale is widely distributed in Arizona, occurring in pure stands over large areas [91]. Shadscale is a dominant species on colluvial slopes along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon [23]. It is poorly represented east of the Colorado River; it most often occurs north and west into Utah and Nevada [118]. California: Shadscale is widely distributed in salt-desert shrublands of the Mojave and Great Basin deserts and in pinyon-juniper (Pinus-Juniperus spp.) woodlands of the eastern Sierra Nevada [77]. Common associates in desert shrublands of California include fourwing saltbush (Atriplex canescens), big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), gray low sagebrush (A. arbuscula ssp. arbuscula), budsage (A. spinescens), greasewood (Sarcobatus spp.), and creosotebush. Shadscale is common in the Inyo and Panamint ranges and in the Black and Funeral ranges east of Death Valley [145]. Colorado: Shadscale is found within isolated areas of southeastern Colorado and is common in western Colorado [26]. In northern desert shrub habitats of Colorado near the Utah border , galleta (Pleuraphis jamesii) is a dominant understory associate [28]. At low elevations shadscale is a component of black sagebrush (A. nova) communities [9]. Shadscale/bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata) communities often have Sandberg bluegrass (Poa secunda) in the understory. Common shrub associates of shadscale/bluebunch wheatgrass communities include spiny horsebrush (Tetradymia spinosa) and winterfat (Krascheninnikovia lanata). Wyoming big sagebrush (A. tridentata ssp. wyomingensis) [9] is codominant within Wyoming big sagebrush-shadscale-spiny hopsage (Grayia spinosa)/needle-and-thread grass (Hesperostipa comata) communities. Salina wildrye (Leymus salinus) codominates in shadscale/Salina wildrye communities. Idaho: In southeastern Idaho common associates include winterfat, spiny hopsage, budsage, and black greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus). Common grass associates include bottlebrush squirreltail (Elymus elymoides) [5,143], giant wildrye (Leymus cinereus) [5], and Indian ricegrass (Achnatherum hymenoides) [143]. Shadscale generally occurs as island patches among the more common sagebrush (Artemisia spp.)-grass communities of southern Idaho [55]. Nevada: Common components of shadscale communities of Nevada include budsage [14,18], winterfat [14,16], rubber rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus) [17], green rabbitbrush (C. viscidiflorus) [16,17], big sagebrush, spiny hopsage [17], and black greasewood [14]. Common grass associates include cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), bottlebrush squirreltail, Sandberg bluegrass [14,17], and Indian ricegrass. Common forbs include halogeton (Halogeton glomeratus), scarlet globemallow (Sphaeralcea coccinea) [14,16], gooseberryleaf globemallow (S. grossularifolia), manyflowered mentzellia (Mentzelia multiflora), and desert princesplume (Stanleya pinnata) [14]. Green molly (Kochia americana) and white bursage (Ambrosia dumosa) are also common associates [73]. Shadscale is a common component of black sagebrush and Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) communities [16]. Within northeastern mountainous rangelands of Nevada, black sagebrush and bottlebrush squirreltail are common associates. New Mexico: In many areas of New Mexico shadscale shares dominance with fourwing saltbush [50]. Oregon: Within the desert or salt-desert shrublands, shadscale/bottlebrush squirreltail is one of the most common communities [64] Utah: Shadscale occurs in greasewood (Sarcobatus spp.), salt-desert shrublands, sagebrush [152] and pinyon-juniper (Pinus-Juniperus spp.) communities [93,141,152]. Important shrub associates within the lower elevation, salty regions, of the Great Basin are winterfat [10,93], budsage, horsebrush (Tetradymia spp.) [10], and black sagebrush [93]. Across shadscale's range in Utah, common grass associates include Indian ricegrass, sand dropseed (Sporobolus cryptandrus) [10,93], blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) [93], needle-and-thread grass, and galleta [10]. Shadscale communities form a vegetative zone below sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) communities and above greasewood communities [31]. Vegetation classifications describing plant communities dominated by shadscale are listed below: AZ [118] CA [34,80,89,122,145] CO [9] ID [42] MT [32,113] NV [14,15,16,17,18,19,120] NM [53] OR [64] UT [155]
Related categories for SPECIES: Atriplex confertifolia | Shadscale |
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