Land Management

The Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) addresses effects of land-use and habitat changes on Southwest Wyoming’s natural resources. In partnership with twelve Federal, State, and local natural resource agencies, and non-governmental organizations– FORT and ten other USGS centers are conducting dozens of integrated science projects to assess the status of Southwest Wyoming’s natural...

The Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) addresses effects of land-use and habitat changes on Southwest Wyoming’s natural resources. In partnership with twelve Federal, State, and local natural resource agencies, and non-governmental organizations– FORT and ten other USGS centers are conducting dozens of integrated science projects to assess the status of Southwest Wyoming’s natural...

Grasslands are arguably one of the most anthropogenically stressed ecosystems of the western United States. The highly endangered black-footed ferret and prairie dogs epitomize grassland mammals of high conservation concern.

A central focus of this program is to conduct multi-scale assessments in order to develop related geospatial decision-support tools and methods. The program includes synthesizing broad-scale datasets and developing innovative approaches to assess the vulnerability and resilience of wildlife habitats and ecosystems, relative to land management decisions and ecosystem stressors on Department of the...

Western Mountain Initiative (WMI) is a long-term collaboration between FORT, WERC, NOROCK, USFS, NPS, LANL, and universities worldwide to address changes in montane forests and watersheds due to climate change. Current emphases include altered forest disturbance regimes (fire, die-off, insect outbreaks) and hydrology; interactions between plants, water, snow, nutrient cycles, and climate; and...

Episodic droughts have long been known to trigger accelerated tree mortality in forests worldwide, including in the Southwest U.S. Scientific understanding of the process drivers and spatial patterns of tree mortality is surprisingly limited, constraining our ability to model forest responses to projected increases in drought. The onset of regional drought since the late 1990s has resulted in...

High-severity crown fires in Southwestern dry-conifer forests — resulting from fire suppression, fuel buildups, and drought — are creating large treeless areas that are historically unprecedented in size. These recent stand-replacing fires have reset extensive portions of Southwest forest landscapes, fostering post-fire successional vegetation that can alter ecological recovery trajectories away...

The Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) addresses effects of land-use and habitat changes on Southwest Wyoming’s natural resources. In partnership with twelve Federal, State, and local natural resource agencies, and non-governmental organizations– FORT and ten other USGS centers are conducting dozens of integrated science projects to assess the status of Southwest Wyoming’s natural...

This goal of this study is to develop a spatially explicit habitat-population modeling framework to assess the viability of Gunnison sage-grouse and each of the seven populations (Gunnison Basin and six satellite populations).

Wild horse populations often increase at high rates on U.S. western rangelands, which in turn can lead to habitat degradation. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management are cooperating on studies investigating the potential of fertility control drugs to reduce foaling rates. In addition, because nearly every management issue concerning wild horses depends on accurate herd counts...

This research examines how water flows affect populations, communities, ecosystems, and hydroscapes. Studies elucidate the interactions among hydrologic, geomorphologic, biogeochemical, biological, and anthropogenic processes. Scientists identify and quantify the spatial and temporal attributes of water flow for ecological needs. Flow alternations by humans are a primary contributor to the...

As the need for incorporating biological objectives into water management decisions has grown, so has the need for methods and metrics to incorporate predictions of relevant biological responses into an increasingly complex decision environment that attempts to balance multiple uses.