DISTRIBUTION AND OCCURRENCE
SPECIES: Shepherdia argentea | Silver Buffaloberry 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION : 
Silver buffaloberry occurs from British Columbia east to Manitoba and
south to California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma [25,44,47,71,87].
Small populations occur in western Minnesota and northwestern Iowa
[25,39].  Silver buffaloberry is most commonly found in the northern
Great Plains [25,44]. 


ECOSYSTEMS : 
   FRES17  Elm-ash-cottonwood
   FRES21  Ponderosa pine
   FRES28  Western hardwoods
   FRES29  Sagebrush
   FRES34  Chaparral-mountain shrub
   FRES35  Pinyon-juniper
   FRES37  Mountain meadows
   FRES38  Plains grasslands
   FRES39  Prairie


STATES : 
     AZ  CA  CO  ID  IA  KS  MN  MT  NE  NV
     NM  ND  OK  OR  SD  UT  WA  WY  AB  BC
     MB  SK


ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS : 
     BADL  BICA  BRCA  COLM  CUST  DETO
     DINO  KNRI  MEVE  PIPE  SCBL  THRO
     WICA


BLM PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS : 
    2  Cascade Mountains
    3  Southern Pacific Border
    4  Sierra Mountains
    5  Columbia Plateau
    6  Upper Basin and Range
    8  Northern Rocky Mountains
   10  Wyoming Basin
   11  Southern Rocky Mountains
   12  Colorado Plateau
   13  Rocky Mountain Piedmont
   14  Great Plains
   15  Black Hills Uplift
   16  Upper Missouri Basin and Broken Lands


KUCHLER PLANT ASSOCIATIONS : 
   K011  Western ponderosa forest
   K016  Eastern ponderosa forest
   K017  Black Hills pine forest
   K023  Juniper-pinyon woodland
   K037  Mountain-mahogany-oak scrub
   K038  Great Basin sagebrush
   K056  Wheatgrass-needlegrass shrubsteppe
   K064  Grama-needlegrass-wheatgrass
   K066  Wheatgrass-needlegrass
   K067  Wheatgrass-bluestem-needlegrass
   K069  Bluestem-grama prairie
   K074  Bluestem prairie
   K081  Oak savanna
   K098  Northern floodplain forest


SAF COVER TYPES : 
    63  Cottonwood
   217  Aspen
   220  Rocky Mountain juniper
   235  Cottonwood-willow
   236  Bur oak
   237  Interior ponderosa pine
   239  Pinyon-juniper
   247  Jeffrey pine


SRM (RANGELAND) COVER TYPES : 
   203  Riparian woodland
   210  Bitterbrush
   310  Needle-and-thread-blue grama
   401  Basin big sagebrush
   408  Other sagebrush types
   411  Aspen woodland
   412  Juniper-pinyon woodland
   421  Chokecherry-serviceberry-rose
   422  Riparian
   601  Bluestem prairie
   606  Wheatgrass-bluestem-needlegrass
   607  Wheatgrass-needlegrass
   608  Wheatgrass-grama-needlegrass
   612  Sagebrush-grass
   615  Wheatgrass-saltgrass-grama
   704  Blue grama-western wheatgrass
   706  Blue grama-sideoats grama
   709  Bluestem-grama
   710  Bluestem prairie
   714  Grama-bluestem
   735  Sideoats grama-sumac-juniper
   805  Riparian


HABITAT TYPES AND PLANT COMMUNITIES : 
Silver buffaloberry occurs in a variety of habitats including woodland,
pinyon (Pinus spp.)-juniper (Juniperus spp.), shortgrass prairie,
mixed-grass prairie, shrubland, sagebrush (Artemisia spp.), and riparian
[2,4,11,33,39].

Silver buffaloberry occurs in seral communities throughout the
Intermountain region.  It is a riverine floodplain shrub in narrowleaf
cottonwood (Populus angustifolia), black cottonwood (P. trichocarpa),
and willow (Salix spp.) communities of California, Colorado, and Nevada
[2,43,74].  In Colorado silver buffaloberry occurs in a narrowleaf
cottonwood/strapleaf willow (S. ligulifolia)-silver buffaloberry
association [2].  In North Dakota silver buffaloberry is a member of
the quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides)/water birch (Betula
occidentalis) habitat type [29].  

In eastern Montana and western North and South Dakota, silver
buffaloberry is an important species in woodland and riparian draws
dominated by green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) [5,12,28,29,55].  Some
common habitat types include green ash, green ash/chokecherry (Prunus
virginiana), and green ash/western snowberry (Symphoricarpos
occidentalis) [5,28,29,37].  In western Montana a silver buffaloberry
community type has been described; western snowberry may form dense
ecotonal thickets around silver buffaloberry stands [28].  

Silver buffaloberry is an important species in native shortgrass and
mixed-grass prairies of the northern Great Plains.  In North Dakota
silver buffaloberry is commonly found in shrub-grassland communities
dominated by western wheatgrass (Pascopyrum smithii), needlegrass (Stipa
spp.), blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), and little bluestem
(Schizachyrium scoparium) [17,45,75].  Silver buffaloberry occurs in 
little bluestem-threadleaf sedge (Carex filifolia) and creeping
juniper (Juniperus horizontalis)/little bluestem habitat types [28,29]. 

In the Black Hills silver buffaloberry occurs in a bur oak (Quercus
macrocarpa)/skunkbush sumac (Rhus trilobata) association [34].  In North
Dakota silver buffaloberry is the dominant shrub in the little Missouri
River Badlands [39].

The following publication lists silver buffaloberry as a community
dominant:

The vegetation of the Grand River/Cedar River, Sioux, and Ashland
  Districts of the Custer National Forest: a habitat type classification
  [28]

Species not previously mentioned but commonly associated with silver
buffaloberry include plains cottonwood (Populus deltoides), American elm
(Ulmus americana), thinleaf alder (Alnus incana ssp. tenuifolia),
boxelder (Acer negundo), American plum (Prunus americana), hackberry
(Celtis occidentalis), red-osier dogwood (Cornus sericea), Wood's rose
(Rosa woodsii), Arkansas rose (R. arkansana), Saskatoon serviceberry
(Amelanchier alnifolia), basin big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp.
tridentata), fringed sage (A. frigida), shrubby cinquefoil (Potentilla
fruticosa), rubber rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseous), black
greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus), sideoats grama (Bouteloua
curtipendula), big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii var. gerardii),
Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratense), plains muhly (Muhlenbergia
cuspidata), field horsetail (Equisetum arvense), Canada wildrye (Elymus
canadensis), yellow sweetclover (Melilotus officinalis), white
sweetclover (M. alba), and starry Solomon-seal (Smilacina stellata)
[2,4,6,28,45,73].

Related categories for Species: Shepherdia argentea | Silver Buffaloberry