Sage‐grouse (Centrocercus spp.) are influencing rapidly evolving land management policy in the western United States. Management objectives for fine‐scale vegetation characteristics (e.g., grass height >18 cm) have been adopted by land management agencies based on resource selection or relationships with fitness proxies reported among numerous habitat studies. Some managers, however, have questioned the appropriateness of these objectives. Moreover, it remains untested whether habitat–fitness relationships documented at fine scales (i.e., among individual nests within a study area) also apply at scales of management units (e.g., pastures or grazing allotments), which are many orders of magnitude larger. We employed meta‐analyses of studies published from 1991 to 2019 to help resolve the role of fine‐scale vegetation structure in nest site selection and nest success across the geographic range of greater sage‐grouse (C. urophasianus) and evaluate the validity of established habitat management objectives. Specifically, we incorporated effects of study design and functional responses to resource availability in meta‐regression models linking vegetation structure to nest site selection, and used a novel meta‐analytic approach to simultaneously model vegetation structure and its relationship to nest success. Our approach tested habitat relationships at a range‐wide extent and a grain size closely matching scales at which agencies make management decisions. We found moderate, but context‐dependent, effects of shrub characteristics and weak effects of herbaceous vegetation on nest site selection. None of the tested vegetation characteristics were related to variation in nest success, suggesting nesting habitat–fitness relationships have been inappropriately extrapolated in developing range‐wide habitat management objectives. Our findings reveal surprising flexibility in habitat use for a species often depicted as having very particular fine‐scale habitat requirements, and cast doubt on the practice of adopting precise management objectives for vegetation structure based on findings of individual small‐scale field studies. © 2020 The Authors. The Journal of Wildlife Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Wildlife Society.

中文翻译：

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是鼠尾草精细专家还是灌木草原专家？

鼠尾草（Centrocercusspp。）正在影响美国西部快速发展的土地管理政策。土地管理机构根据资源选择或与众多生境研究报告的适应度代理关系，采用了精细植被特征（例如，草高> 18 cm）的管理目标。但是，一些经理对这些目标的适当性提出了质疑。此外，未经测试的精细尺度（例如，研究区域内单个巢穴之间）的栖息地与适宜性关系是否也适用于管理单位规模（例如牧场或放牧地段），其数量级要大很多个数量级。尾pha），并评估已建立的栖息地管理目标的有效性。具体而言，我们在将植被结构与巢址选择联系起来的元回归模型中纳入了研究设计和对资源可用性的功能响应的影响，并使用新颖的元分析方法同时对植被结构及其与巢成功的关系进行建模。我们的方法在广泛的范围内测试了栖息地的关系，其粒度与机构制定管理决策的规模非常匹配。我们发现灌木特征的适度但与背景有关的效应以及草木植被对巢穴选择的弱效应。测试的植被特征均与巢成功度的变化无关，这表明在制定范围广泛的栖息地管理目标时，不恰当地推断出筑巢的栖息地与适宜性之间的关系。我们的发现揭示了通常被描述为具有非常特殊的精细栖息地要求的物种在栖息地使用方面的令人惊讶的灵活性，并且对基于个别小规模实地研究的结果对植被结构采用精确管理目标的实践提出了质疑。©2020作者。的Wiley Periodicals，Inc.代表野生动物协会出版的《野生动物管理杂志》。