Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2002AZ1B

THE IMPACTS OF UNGULATES ON VEGETATION ASSOCIATED WITH WATER CATCHMENTS

Institute: Arizona
Year Established: 2002 Start Date: 2002-03-01 End Date: 2003-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $11,325 Total Non-Federal Funds: $22,649

Principal Investigators: Paul Krausman

Project Summary: Wildlife managers in the Southwestern United States often consider water a limiting factor for desert wildlife. As a result, thousands of water catchments have been created throughout the Southwest for wildlife since the 1930s. However, the influence of water catchments on wildlife have only recently been evaluated and there is no published literature indicating how the vegetation is influenced by wildlife that use the water sources. Understanding the relationship is important as vegetation is critical to maintenance of viable populations. If water catchments are attracting more ungulates to an area that are damaging vegetation, the net result would be detrimental instead of beneficial to the population. My objective is to determine if and how desert ungulates influence vegetation associated with water catchments in the Southwest.