Assessment of multiple herbicide protection seed treatments for seed-based restoration of native perennial bunchgrasses and sagebrush across multiple sites and years.

The invasion of exotic, annual plant species is a leading contributor to ecological degradation in drylands globally, and the use of pre-emergent herbicide to control these species is common. Pre-emergent herbicides pose challenges for seed-based restoration due to toxicity to the seeds of desired species. Herbicide protection (HP) technologies pose a potential solution by using activated carbon seed treatments to protect desirable seeds from herbicide exposure.

Drivers of seedling establishment success in dryland restoration efforts.

Restoration of degraded drylands is urgently needed to mitigate climate change, reverse desertification and secure livelihoods for the two billion people who live in these areas. Bold global targets have been set for dryland restoration to restore millions of hectares of degraded land. These targets have been questioned as overly ambitious, but without a global evaluation of successes and failures it is impossible to gauge feasibility.

Strong patterns of intraspecific variation and local adaptation in Great Basin plants revealed through a review of 75 years of experiments.

Variation in natural selection across heterogeneous landscapes often produces (a) among-population differences in phenotypic traits, (b) trait-by-environment associations, and (c) higher fitness of local populations. Using a broad literature review of common garden studies published between 1941 and 2017, we documented the commonness of these three signatures in plants native to North America's Great Basin, an area of extensive restoration and revegetation efforts, and asked which traits and environmental variables were involved. We also asked, independent of geographic distance, whether populations from more similar environments had more similar traits.

Restoring dryland old fields with native shrubs and grasses: Does facilitation and seed source matter?

Restoration of agricultural fields is challenging, especially in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. We conducted experiments in two fields in the Great Basin, USA, which differed in cultivation history and fertility. We tested the effects of different levels of functional diversity (planting grasses and shrubs together, vs.