Images

A Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) sitting on a nest. Piping Plovers breeding in the northern Great Plains, listed as Threatened since 1985, have been managed as a metapopulation consisting of four separate breeding groups with assumed infrequent movements among groups.

Invasion by annual brome grasses (cheatgrass and Japanese brome) on a trail across native prairie into National Park Service units in the Northern Great Plains.

USGS biologist Stacy Simanonok captures a bumble bee in a net during a pollinator survey in the grasslands of the North Dakota plains. Researchers are testing environmental DNA sampling methods to determine if this less invasive way to survey for pollinators generates similar results as traditional netting methods.

An endangered rusty patched bumble bee visiting a butterfly milkweed flower at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

A Northern Great Plains grassland in North Dakota photographed during a survey for bees and flowers.

A sea of purple prairie clover in the Northern Great Plains of North Dakota, photographed during a survey for bees and flowers on private property enrolled in a USDA conservation program.

USGS technicians preparing to sample a grassland for bees and flowers in the North Dakota plains. The technicians are counting the number of blooming flowers in a transect.

Bee nesting block with included image insert showing nesting hole occupied by a bee.

Hawkmoth flying near milkweed plant in North Dakota.  Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center is monitoring milkweed populations across the Central United States.

Bumblebee feeding on Phacelia flower found in an established Pollinator Plot at Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Jamestown, North Dakota.

An endangered rusty patched bumble bee visiting a prairie dock flower on conservation lands in Illinois. The rusty patched bumble bee is the first pollinator species to be listed as Endangered under the Endangered Species Act in the continental United States. 

WebCam image of wetland P8 at the Cottonwood Lake Study Area in Stutsman County, North Dakota.

Barred Tiger Salamander Paedomorph, Cottonwood Lake Study Area, North Dakota. Some barred tiger salamanders never metamorphose and keep their larval features (e.g., gills, finlike tail) their whole lives as reproductively mature adults known as paedomorphs, which can grow to be 14 inches in length.

A tractor using a grass-seed drill to plant a tallgrass prairie site in Minnesota.

Photograph of cattle standing in a prairie-pothole wetland in Stutsman County, North Dakota.

U.S. Geological Survey scientist with wetland soil sample showing organic carbon.

Two USGS research technicians walk across a sparsely vegetated sandbar towards the Missouri River while surveying for piping plovers. 

Four recently hatched piping plover chicks huddle in the nest bowl on the Garrison Reach of the Missouri River, North Dakota

Photograph of museum specimens of the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, Bombus affinis

Photograph of the flowers of Dakota wild buckwheat (Eriogonum visheri).

It is native to the Great Plains in the United States, where it is known from North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.

Photograph of a Horned Lark nest with newly hatched nestlings.  Nest was found in Phillips County, Montana near S. Wagner Road.