Project Supervisor
Dr. Philip S. Gipson

Funding
U.S. Department of Defense, 
Ft. Riley ITAM Program

Objectives
Assess the impacts of repeated military vehicle disturbances on plant, animal, and soil communities to determine indicators of non-intervention sustainability and develop ecological models at the local ecosystem level.

Develop statistical models of impacts by military disturbance and verify those models with monitoring data.

Assess the use of low-level aerial photography to evaluate bare ground conditions.  Evaluate seasonal variation and the minimum area on which bare ground measurement can be made with precision, as determined from these photos.

Explore other potential methods (including non-invasive data collections that do not require handling) to rapidly assess small mammal communities with the goal of reducing monitoring costs and health risk to field researchers.

Location
Fort Riley Military Reservation, Kansas

Completion
September 2011

Progress and Results
Established 35, 1-ha-sized special use plots (distributed across 5 sites) on Ft. Riley to investigate the impact of tracked military vehicle training on animals, plants, and soils.  During 2007, baseline data (i.e., pre-treatment) was collected on plant community composition, small mammal community composition, small grassland bird presence, grasshopper community composition, and soil physical (bulk density), chemical (Total N and C), and biological (nematode) properties along with low-level aerial photography assessments of bare ground conditions.  Starting spring 2008, disturbance treatments will be applied with an Abrams tank traveling a pre-established tracking pattern on 4-6 plots per site as part of a long-term experiment.  In subsequent years, some of those same plots will again receive tank-applied disturbance.  The sampling methods and schedule used in 2007 will also be used in 2008.  

Monitoring on training lands with respect to bare ground areas, non-woody vegetation, and vehicle traffic was conducted on 42  randomly assigned 1-ha sized plots within maneuver areas on Ft. Riley during summer 2007.   Low-level aerial photographs were obtained and ground-truthed.  In 2008, over 100, 1-ha sized plots are scheduled to be photographed and analyzed to continue this long-term assessment effort.

The annual breeding bird survey was conducted (for the 15th consecutive year) on 60 permanently established plots during early summer 2007 and is scheduled to be conducted again in 2008.

Products
Project investigators assisted the Ft. Riley RTLA program with development of their RTLA Plan that documents the justification for, protocols used, and reporting of metrics to assess training lands on the installation on an annual basis.  A final report for the previous research work order (2002-2007) was submitted to the Ft. Riley Integrated Training Area Management (ITAM) coordinator; that report included recommendations for protocols to be used for assessments of small mammal, small landbird, soil, and vegetation communities based on evaluations done from 2000-2005.  A presentation was given at the Society of Range Management.  Four peer-reviewed publications related to this research effort were accepted and/or published in the last year on birds, small mammals, and soils.