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ARS Home » Plains Area » Las Cruces, New Mexico » Range Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #429730
Research Project: Knowledge Systems and Tools to Increase the Resilience and Sustainability of Western Rangeland Agriculture

Location: Range Management Research

Title: A common biocrust code system for use in rangeland monitoring and research

Author
item Meadors, Savannah
item REED, SASHA - Us Geological Survey (USGS)
item PIETRASIAK, NICOLE - University Of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nv
item CONDON, LEA - Us Geological Survey (USGS)
item BAILEY, LYDIA - Us Geological Survey (USGS)
item Burkett, Laura
item McCord, Sarah

Submitted to: Society for Range Management Meeting Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/1/2025
Publication Date: 2/11/2026
Citation: Meadors, S.R., Reed, S., Pietrasiak, N., Condon, L., Bailey, L., Burkett, L.M., McCord, S.E. 2026. A common biocrust code system for use in rangeland monitoring and research. Society for Range Management Meeting Abstracts. Abstract.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Standardized monitoring data are critical for understanding rangeland condition and trend from local to regional scales. Core upland monitoring techniques such as line- point intercept (LPI) have been adopted by the rangeland community at over 100,000 monitoring locations globally. When collecting data for LPI and other cover methods in rangeland assessment and monitoring, a series of codes are used to record pin intercept “hits”. A standard set of soil surface codes, published in Herrick et al (2017), are the baseline codes utilized in many data collection efforts, including those that inform larger aggregated analyses and national reporting. However, due to the broad adoption of the core methods, especially in academic rangeland research, there are an increasing number of novel LPI soil surface codes created to fulfill specialized purposes not accounted for in Herrick et. al (2017). This is especially true in biocrust research and management, where more detailed soil surface codes are required to collect meaningful data. There currently is no official set of standardized codes for biocrust related research, leading to case-by-case conversion of asynchronous, project-specific codes to the current set for use in large scale analyses. Converting these specialized project codes to the available list of standard soil surface codes dilutes the power of these analyses. Standardizing novel soil surface codes, particularly within the biocrust community, is essential to retaining the nuance of these data while enabling their use in broad-scale analyses. This will allow specialized datasets to be informative not only to local applications, but managers and other rangeland community members. Standardized biocrust codes will also enable efficient aggregation of the data for large scale analyses alongside datasets that may not use these increasingly specific codes. This biocrust case study provides a framework for building specialized LPI codes for other applications as well.