by Miles Carlile, Ceana Olson, and the GBI Research Associate Program
Top Photo: IBAER tour participants at Walker Basin Conservancy in Smith Valley, NV. Photo credit: Robyn Carlo, USFWS
The Great Basin ecoregion is no stranger to wildfire. In fact, fire is a common natural process across much of the western United States. For centuries, indigenous nations used fire as a tool, creating an ecological mosaic across the landscape, supporting many native species and boosting diversity. Prior to European settlement, periodic fires occurred in the Great Basin every 60-100 years. However, today we see far more frequent, high intensity wildfires. The introduction of invasive species, human development, and a changing climate have completely altered the historic ‘fire regime,’ a term that describes wildfire’s frequency and severity in an ecosystem. Millions of acres of important habitat have been scorched, many converting to invasive monocultures that outcompete native flora needed to support wildlife. These lands are desperate for basic stabilization or rehabilitation, but they’re missing one crucial ingredient: native seeds. Seed availability in the Great Basin does not meet the high volume needed for restoration, but land management agencies, the Great Basin Institute, and other conservation organizations have been hard at work developing native plant materials projects to bridge the gap. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service organized a visit at the end of September for federal Interagency Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (IBAER) personnel, Nevada Native Seed Partnership members, and supporting agencies to tour projects receiving post-fire restoration funding (BIL-BAR) in the Great Basin. The tour was an opportunity to showcase successes that BIL BAR funds have made possible and demonstrated how continued funding will support ongoing native seed collection, production, and seed-based restoration efforts in the Great Basin.
The first stop on the tour was Walker Basin Conservancy (WBC) in Smith Valley, NV. WBC’s unrelenting mission to restore Walker Lake has led to their efforts throughout the lake’s periphery and the Walker Lake watershed, including the restoration of native plant communities and important habitat for species such as the monarch butterfly. The tour highlighted WBC’s native plant nursery and propagation facilities, seed increase fields, and native seed equipment network. Formulating agricultural techniques for native species can be challenging and time consuming as experimentation is often necessary to make up for gaps in our knowledge. The development of agricultural practices in the world of native plants is an ongoing effort, collaboration between conservation organizations and local communities a vital component. A network of communication between native plant producers has resulted in native seed increase successes, providing materials to restore our suffering natural landscapes.
Participants then traveled to the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) Native Seed Bank to participate in an informational tour and overview of the facility. Seed Banks are facilities designed to collect, process, and preserve seeds, an exceptionally important yet often overlooked part of the ecosystem restoration process. Cofounded by Doctor Beth Leger and research ecologist Shannon Swim, the UNR Native Seed Bank uses state of the art seed cleaning, storage, and research equipment to process, preserve, and research locally adapted native seed. Dr. Leger and Swim led tour participants through each step of the seed development process, from initial processing using custom built seed cleaning equipment to viability testing using the facility’s germination incubators. Dr. Leger and her team of motivated graduate students use x-ray imaging systems, greenhouses, and other research equipment to perform studies to better understand how locally adapted seed can be used to restore landscapes damaged by wildfires and development. Resulting discoveries identify a suite of strategies that can be used by land managers to successfully restore our Great Basin cold desert ecosystems.
On day two of the tour, the Great Basin Institute proudly provided participants with updates and accomplishments of the Seeds of Success field season. Seeds of Success (SOS) is a national native seed collection program within the Bureau of Land Management’s national Native Plant Materials Development Program, providing sustainably sourced wildland collected seeds to researchers and land managers. This year, GBI used BIL BAR funding to employ seven SOS field crews to complete large-scale native seed collection across the Great Basin ecoregion, the first step in the native plant procurement cycle. Beginning in early April of this year, GBI seed collectors were trained in Seeds of Success protocols, received an introduction to ecology and botany of the ecoregion, and prepared for life in the field. By the end of April, crews were out scouting vast areas of the Great Basin, searching for large populations of target plant species suitable for seed collection. Once a viable population was identified, crews collected preliminary site data, herbarium specimens, and tracked the phenology of the plant populations until the seed was mature and ready for harvest. In total, the GBI teams made ninety-two collections of nearly ten million pure live seeds from populations of thirty-one unique species. Many of the collections are large enough to be sent into production for seed increase. This way, the amount of seed going back onto our natural landscapes has the potential to multiply. Ultimately this locally adapted seed will be made available to Great Basin land managers to restore important habitat areas impacted by wildfires. In 2025, GBI aims to expand its seed collection efforts, employing more crews than SOS has ever had in the Great Basin.
Later, after hearing from the Nevada Department of Agriculture, Nevada Division of Forestry, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources’ Great Basin Research Center, and The Nature Conservancy about their contributions to seed restoration, the tour made its way to Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge in Fallon, Nevada. Fallon, like Smith Valley, is a heavy agricultural zone perfect for plant production. There, the group stood on the grounds of an emerging project, visualizing what is to come: a native seed farm and nursery. GBI is hiring specialists to get this exciting new seed production project up and running, and we could not be more excited for our part in the future of plant materials development in the Great Basin. With optimism and hope for the future, the tour commenced.
