Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK)
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We hope you will enjoy learning about the variety of ecosystems and species we are studying throughout the United States. Our scientists work on diverse issues such as fish and wildlife conservation, invasive species and wildlife disease, energy development, climate and ecosystem change, and much more. Click on Science to begin exploring the places we go and the species and landscapes we study.
NOROCK in the News
Click here for the most recent media and news on NOROCK science.
Mapping HuckleberryNOROCK Quick Links
Check out our most up-to-date data, events and science.
Flattop Mountain Snowpack Data for Water Year 2018
Glacier Repeat Photography Project
NOROCK ScienceNews
USGS Grizzly Bear Biologist Receives Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame Honors
On March 22, USGS Supervisory Wildlife Biologist Mark Haroldson will be inducted into the Wyoming Outdoor Hall of Fame for his contributions to understanding grizzly bear biology, ecology, and...
IGBST Public Notifications and Resources
As part of ongoing efforts required under the 2016 Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Conservation Strategy to monitor the population of grizzly bears in the Yellowstone Ecosystem, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) captures and monitors grizzly bears for research and monitoring purposes. Here you will find capture notifications for the 2018 field season.
A Unified Research Strategy for Disease Management
As wildlife diseases increase globally, an understanding of host-pathogen relationships can elucidate avenues for management and improve conservation efficacy. Amphibians are among the most threatened groups of wildlife, and disease is a major factor in global amphibian declines.
Publications
To forage or flee: Lessons from an elk migration near a protected area
Alteration of wide-ranging wildlife migrations can drastically impact the structure and function of ecosystems, yet the causes and consequences of shifting migration patterns remain largely unknown. Management decisions made in one portion of a landscape may induce spatial and temporal shifts of wildlife use in another, creating tension among...
Mikle, Nathaniel; Graves, Tabitha A.; Olexa, Edward M. Identifying occupancy model inadequacies: Can residuals separately assess detection and presence?
Occupancy models are widely applied to estimate species distributions, but few methods exist for model checking. Thorough model assessments can uncover inadequacies and allow for deeper ecological insight by exploring structure in the observed data not accounted for by a model. We introduce occupancy model residual definitions that utilize the...
Wright, Wilson; Irvine, Kathryn M.; Higgs, Megan D. Wetland drying linked to variations in snowmelt runoff across Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks
In Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks wetlands offer critical habitat and play a key role in supporting biological diversity. The shallow depths and small size of many wetlands make them vulnerable to changes in climate compared with larger and deeper aquatic habitats. Here, we use a simple water balance model to generate estimates of...
Ray, Andrew M.; Sepulveda, Adam J.; Irvine, Kathryn M.; Wilmoth, Siri K.C.; Thoma, David P.; Patla, Debra A.