Birds

Arid shrublands of western North America face growing threats from disturbances such as wildfire, drought, and invasive species. These threats are increasingly altering the sagebrush (Artemisia species) biome and degrading habitat for species of conservation concern such as greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus). Effective management and restoration are needed to slow or reverse these...

Wildlife management is frequently conducted to benefit a single species, despite evidence that suggests such an approach often fails to adequately address the needs of other species within a region. Managing for multiple species’ habitat requirements is even more critical when large scale habitat management efforts change vegetation conditions at the landscape scale, or when management occurs at...

To support strategic ecosystem management across the imperiled sagebrush steppe in Wyoming, USA, we developed an extension of the Prioritizing Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems Tool (PReSET). Our expanded tool leverages emerging spatial data resources to provide a structured but customizable set of scenarios that can guide landscape-scale planning efforts by prioritizing conservation and...

Through a collaborative effort with multiple state and federal agencies, university researchers, and individual stakeholders, we are producing a set of predictive seasonal habitat maps for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) spanning the entirety of the species’ U.S. distribution. This is the largest habitat modeling effort of its kind for the species and uses a large, compiled spatial...

In partnership with the Bureau of Land Management and Colorado Parks and Wildlife, scientists from USGS Fort Collins Science Center and Western Ecological Research Center are applying a hierarchical monitoring framework to Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus) to evaluate population trends and inform adaptive management.

USGS researchers are conducting a comprehensive study of wild horse and livestock records across the greater sage-grouse range to investigate impacts on vegetation and wildlife (specifically, sage-grouse and songbirds). Researchers will use these results to evaluate Appropriate Management Levels for wild horse and burros, and projections of vegetation productivity under a changing climate.

Within areas of overlapping sagebrush and pinyon-juniper ecosystems, wildlife populations are declining due to habitat fragmentation and degradation, changing climate, and human development. However, management to bolster species associated with one ecosystem may result in negative consequences for species associated with the other. Thus, land managers are challenged with balancing which system to...

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, and Oklahoma State University are studying the distribution of grassland bird communities across the western Great Plains to anticipate how species distributions may respond to a changing climate.

Sagebrush ecosystems represent one of the most imperiled systems in North America and face continued and widespread degradation due to multiple factors including climate change, invasive species, and increased human development. Effective sagebrush management must consider how to best conserve and restore habitats to stem the decline of species that rely on them, especially given limited...

USGS researchers, in collaboration with the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative and other partners, are developing a statistically based prioritization tool that will aid agencies in their management decisions.

USGS scientists are identifying local adaptation in sage-grouse by modeling allelic variation at large numbers of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in relation to environmental and climate variables.

USGS scientists are developing multiple products to directly inform the Bureau of Land Management's Sage-grouse Habitat Assessment Framework process.