Publications

National Park Service (NPS) units in the northern Great Plains (NGP) were established to preserve and interpret the history of America, protect and showcase unusual geology and paleontology, and provide a home for vanishing large wildlife. A unifying feature among these national parks, monuments, and historic sites is mixed-grass prairie, which not only provides background scenery but is...

As part of a broader trial of noninvasive methods to research wild wolves (Canis lupus) in Minnesota, USA, we explored whether wolves could be remotely monitored using a new, inexpensive, remotely deployable, noninvasive, passive acoustic recording device, the AudioMoth. We tested the efficacy of AudioMoths in detecting wolf howls and factors influencing detection by placing them at set...

Keys to Sedge Wren (Cistothorus stellaris) management include providing tall, dense grasslands with moderate forb coverage and minimizing disturbances during the breeding season. Sedge Wrens have been reported to use habitats with 30–166 centimeters (cm) average vegetation height, 8–80 cm visual obstruction reading, 15–75 percent grass cover, 3–78 percent forb cover, less than or equal...

The key to Lesser Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) management is maintaining expansive sand shinnery oak (Quercus havardii) or sand sagebrush (Artemisia filifolia) grasslands. Within these grasslands, areas should contain short herbaceous cover for lek sites (that is, an area where male prairie-chickens gather to engage in courtship displays to attract mates); shrubs or tall...

Soil and the inherent biogeochemical processes in wetlands contrast starkly with those in upland forests and rangelands. The differences stem from extended periods of anoxia, or the lack of oxygen in the soil, that characterize wetland soils; in contrast, upland soils are nearly always oxic. As a result, wetland soil biogeochemistry is characterized by anaerobic processes, and wetland...

No abstract available.

The only self-sustaining population of endangered whooping cranes (Grus americana) requires a network of conservation lands for wintering along the Texas Gulf Coast (USA), so that this increasing population can reach downlisting under the Endangered Species Act (1,000 birds). We identify locations providing the highest quality and most sustainable wintering habitat for these whooping...

Declines among species of insect pollinators, especially butterflies, has garnered attention from scientists and managers. Often these declines have spurred governments to declare some species as threatened or endangered. We used existing presence–absence data from surveys for the threatened Dakota skipper Hesperia dacotae (Skinner) to build statistical maps of species presence that...

Tallgrass prairie is a disturbance‐dependent ecosystem that has suffered steep declines in the midwestern United States. The necessity of disturbance, typically fire or grazing, presents challenges to managers who must apply them on increasingly small and fragmented parcels. The goal of this study was to compare effects of management using cattle grazing or fire on vegetation and soil

The mission of Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center is to provide scientific information needed to conserve and manage the Nation’s natural capital for current and future generations, with an emphasis on migratory birds, Department of the Interior trust resources, and ecosystems of the Nation’s interior. This report provides an overview of the studies conducted at Northern Prairie...

Impacts of land use, specifically soil disturbance, are linked to reductions of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks. Correspondingly, ecosystem restoration is promoted to sequester SOC to mitigate anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which are exacerbating global climate change. Restored wetlands have relatively high potential to sequester carbon compared to other ecosystems, but SOC...

Land managers have stressed the need for improved pollinator habitat on private and public lands of the Prairie Pothole Region. Understanding flowering plant preferences of pollinators will improve the cost-effectiveness of conservation seeding mixes. The purpose of this fact sheet is to assist conservation planners and producers with developing seed mixes by highlighting flowering...