Images

USGS SBSC information specialist Meredith Hartwell tabling at the Northern Arizona University Biennial Conference.

Research boats on the Colorado River observe waterfalls flowing down Marble Canyon's cliff walls during a rainstorm in August 2022. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS.

A school of humpback chub swimming in Havasu Creek, Grand Canyon. Photo by David Herasimtschuk, Freshwaters Illustrated, paid for and used with permission by USGS Southwest Biological Science Center. 

Aquatic eDNA sampling at the Verde River near Perkinsville Bridge, AZ. The scientists conducting the sampling are from the USGS, US Bureau of Reclamation's Gila River Basin Native Fishes Conservation Program, and Arizona Game & Fish Department. Photo courtesy of Kim Dibble, USGS.

A female cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl (Glaucidium brasilianum cactorum) in N. Sonora, Mexico, June 2022. Photo by Aaron Flesch, University of Arizona, Tucson, used with permission by USGS.

USGS Southwest Biological Science Center Research statistician Charles Yackulic on a river trip.

Degraded dryland habitat on the Colorado Plateau. Photo by Morgan Andrews, SBSC, USGS.

A radioed male tortoise in the Santa Rosa Mountains, CA eating a beavertail prickly pear cactus. During the extreme drought conditions we are experiencing, that is the only food available for them with any moisture. They have to cope with all the little spiny gloccids (hair-like spines) that cover the pads of the cactus. Video provided by Dr.

A conceptual diagram showing how load following flows reduces light availability to the benthos, thus reducing gross primary production.

Grand Canyon Youth/Partners in Science trip participants cool down under a small waterfall on a hot day

An example of successful perennial grass establishment on a reclaimed oil and gas well pad site in the Book Cliffs, Utah. Photo by Mike Duniway, SBSC, USGS.

Oenothera pallida, or pale evening primrose, in Grand Canyon. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS Southwest Biological Science Center.

Partners in Science trip participants deploy a light trap to sample aquatic insects along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. 

USGS conducts vegetation and soil drought and climatic research at long-term study sites in Canyonlands National Park, Utah in partnership with the National Park Service. This photo shows a site tour of a protected grassland that has been monitored by the USGS since 1996, with 2025 marking the 30th year of continuous data collection.

Lake Powell panorama taken from the water, with rocks rising from the water surface in the distance. Photo taken by SBSC.

Panorama photo of Lake Powell taken from the water, with rocks in the distance. Some of the "bathtub ring" is visible on the rocks from mineral deposits left when the water level dropped.

A bee visits a saguaro flower near Tucson in Saguaro National Park, southern Arizona. Photo courtesy of Daniel Winkler, USGS SBSC.

Bathtub rings on a rock face in Lake Powell where the water has dropped and left mineral deposits behind. Photo by SBSC.

California bearpoppy (Arctomecon californica) in gypsum-based soil. The declining abundance of this species is being actively tracked in multiple states. Photo by Morgan Andrews, SBSC, USGS.

A saguaro flowering in the desert near Tucson, AZ. Photo courtesy of Daniel Winkler, USGS, SBSC. Taken in spring, 2022.

An eastern Joshua tree (Yucca jaegeriana) inflorescence (flowers) with a Yucca moth (Tegeticula antithetica) trap. SBSC is studying the ecology of the eastern Yucca moth, which is the obligate pollinator of eastern Joshua trees, to determine how climate change affects the emergence of blossoms and eastern Yucca moth visitation.