Sage-grouse

Sage-grouse, iconic birds of the American West, have experienced dramatic reductions and fragmentation of habitat, resulting in significant conservation concern. Genetic information can help inform priorities for protection and habitat restoration as well as strategies for translocations, but may be difficult for resource managers to find, interpret, and use in their decision making. In this work...

Below are ongoing or completed research projects related to forest ecosystems at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.

Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ) management relies on the identification and protection of core habitat for the species. Core areas are often centered on leks where the potential impacts of anthropogenic development and other disturbances can be evaluated based on buffer distances around active leks. While buffer distances have been quantified for some regions, sage-grouse space...

Researchers within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Colorado State University (CSU) worked with BLM and State Wildlife Agencies to develop a hierarchical population monitoring framework for managing greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ) populations and the sagebrush ecosystems that they depend upon for survival and reproduction. This hierarchical population monitoring strategy now...

Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ) are at the center of state and national land use policies largely because of their unique life-history traits as an ecological indicator for health of sagebrush ecosystems. Researchers within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Colorado State University (CSU) worked with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and state wildlife agencies to develop a...

Sagebrush ecosystems and sagebrush-dependent wildlife species are likely to experience more frequent extreme drought and temperature conditions with changing climate. Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ), an indicator species in sagebrush ecosystems, may experience habitat and population losses that are increasingly exacerbated by current and future climate change. However, the direct...

Land and wildlife managers require accurate estimates of sensitive species’ trends to help guide conservation decisions that maintain biodiversity and promote healthy ecosystems. Researchers within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Colorado State University (CSU) worked with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and State Wildlife Agencies to develop a hierarchical population monitoring...

In partnership with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and other partners, scientists from USGS Fort Collins Science Center are working to create a suite of prioritization scenarios that will inform adaptive management for Gunnison sage-grouse.

In 2021, the Fort Collins Science Center initiated a research effort to 1) assess how traffic in Wyoming has impacted sage-grouse population growth rates, 2) identify the spatial scales at which these effects are most evident, and 3) identify what levels of traffic result in sage-grouse population declines.

In 2021, the Fort Collins Science Center initiated a research effort to estimate road age and annual traffic volumes across the majority of roads in Wyoming for assessing impacts to wildlife. Data on roads often focus on the ‘where’ (for example, spatial features) but neglect the ‘when’ (for example, road age) or ‘how much’ (for example, traffic volume). Knowing these characteristics is critical...

Roads and their associated infrastructure can cause substantial and pervasive effects on adjacent ecosystems but are necessary for the movement and redistribution of goods, people, wealth, and natural resources in modern societies. The Fort Collins Science Center has initiated research looking at how roads and traffic may be impacting sagebrush ecosystems and the wildlife inhabiting them. This...

We are working with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) to pilot an expansion of the Prioritizing Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems Tool (PReSET; Duchardt et al. 2021) across northwestern Colorado. We are in the initial phase of a two-phase project where we are leveraging existing data resources to provide customized scenarios that directly guide landscape-scale conservation delivery by CPW. This...