Introduction to Rangeland Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

Abstract Rangelands are vast, dynamic, and integral to providing habitat for thousands of vertebrate and invertebrate species, while concurrently serving as the foundation of human food and fiber production in western North America. Reciprocally, wildlife species provide critical services that maintain functional rangeland ecosystems. Therefore, human management of rangelands via fire, grazing, agricultural programs, and policy can enhance, disturb, or inhibit the necessary interactions among natural processes of plants and animals that maintain rangeland ecosystems. As conservation issues involving rangelands have grown in societal awareness and complexity, rangeland managers, wildlife biologists, and others have discovered the need to work more closely together with an increasingly holistic approach, spurring a rapid accumulation of rangeland wildlife information in the early twenty-first century. This book represents a synthesis of contemporary knowledge on rangeland wildlife conservation and ecology. Accordingly, we provide a review of the state of science for new, as well as seasoned, wildlife and rangeland professionals who have stewardship of North America’s most undervalued ecosystem.