Hotspot Analysis Reveals Large Landscape Controls Over Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) Persistence Across Arid Landscapes

Room # EB402

The invasion of exotic annual grasses during the last century has transformed plant habitats and communities worldwide. Cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) is a winter annual grass that has invaded over 100 million acres of the western United States (Pellant and Hall, 1994. Pellant, 1996). Cheatgrass has relatively rapid growth rate and has been shown to invade particularly in post-disturbance landscapes (Germino 2016). A major impact of invasion is the increased frequency in fires (D’Antonio and Vitousek, 1992). Cheatgrass’ prolific seed production and flammability allows it to competitively exclude native plant species (Seabloom et al., 2003). The successful life strategy of cheatgrass gives a unique spectral image reflectance that can allow the use of remote sensing platforms to track and locate invasions.