Excerpt from Natural Replacement of Weed Hosts of the Beet Leafhopper as Affected by Rodents

Some apparently erratic changes, however, in the successions of vegetation that took place on areas where burning, plowing, and overgrazing were prevented were not explained. The eco logical studies as made from 1930 to 1944 on three 40-acre fenced plots and on unfenced tracts in southern Idaho now indicate that such variable behavior was due to destruction of vegetation by native animals, chiefly jack rabbits. These observations, reported and interpreted in this circular, demonstrate that in addition to burning, plowing, and excessive grazing, the feeding by rodents is a factor that in some instances disrupts plant successions and thereby retards the natural replacement of weed hosts of the insect vector of the curly top Virus.

The studies of plant successions have thus produced results that are useful as apart of the basic information needed in promoting production of sugar beets and other crops affected by curly top. They also contribute toward a better understanding of range management problems in an area subject to intermittent farming. They should aid in the development of wise land use practices - a consideration of long-time significance and increasing importance.

The studies deal specifically with communities of annual plants found on the desert-dry outlying lands bordering cultivated dis tricts and on range lands that were formerly covered by the northern desert-shrub type of vegetation - sagebrush, with its associated perennial grasses, and herbaceous perennials. Al though the communities of annual plants may be different on the nearby foothills and on higher plains and valleys of southern Idaho where the plant cover formerly consisted of other types of native perennial vegetation, some of the essential results of these studies will apply to these areas also, as they have already been found applicable in somewhat similar investigations in the San Joaquin Valley, Calif.

This circular deals with the data obtained and the conclusions derived from their interpretation.

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