Images

How do restoration plantings alter ecosystem function? NAU PhD student Kathleen Balazs and technician Sarah Negovan measure soil water infiltration rates at a RestoreNet site near La Sal, Utah. These measurements will illustrate how restoration plantings effect certain ecosystem functions

The Colorado River winds through Grand Canyon, with riparian vegetation along the banks. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS Southwest Biological Science Center.

A burned area from wildfire in Agua Fria National Monument in central AZ. Photo by Katie Laushman, USGS.

Close-up of biocrust filaments. Taken by SBSC during surveys, in Utah, 2020. Photo courtesy of Erika Geiger.

Biocrusts create a protective surface that retain soil moisture and protect seeds, facilitating seedling germination and survival. Photo courtesy of Erika Geiger, SBSC USGS, Utah, 2020.

Land managers representing National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, Navajo Nation, private ranches and farms attend the first RestoreNet stakeholder meeting at the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center in February 2020. 

A dynamic illustration of how pixel matching can be used for finding control points on a map of Shay Mesa, Utah, showing an area of pinyon-juniper clearing treatments. For more information, see the paper: What determines the effectiveness of Pinyon-Juniper clearing treatments?

USGS Southwest Biological Science Center, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center plant ecologist Emily Palmquist. Emily studies riparian plant ecology in drylands of the western U.S. with particular emphasis on providing scientific information that addresses land management and stakeholder needs.

A research and monitoring area at a sandbar near an archaeological site along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon where encroaching vegetation has been removed. Photo courtesy of Joel Sankey, USGS, Southwest Biological Science Center, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center.

A photo of drylands near Moab, Utah. Image taken by Erika Geiger, USGS. Public domain.

RAMPS expands drought adaptation project with national parks in the 4-Corners area. National parks across the desert Southwest are experiencing ecological impacts due to climate change.

RAMPS expands drought adaptation project with national parks in the 4-Corners area. National parks across the desert Southwest are experiencing ecological impacts due to climate change.

A BLM collaborator spreads straw mulch on experimental reclamation treatment near Vernal, Utah, in an oil and gas well pad reclamation experiment in collaboration with USGS Southwest Biological Science Center, November 2019. Photo by Rebecca Mann, USGS, SBSC.

RAMPS met with DOI Office of Wildland Fire, US Customs and Border Patrol, and US Fish & Wildlife Service staff at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern AZ last November. The group is developing tools to reduce wildfire risk, conserve wildlife habitat and natural resources, and increase safety and security of border operations.

Arid grasslands in the U.S. Mexico border are fire adapted and used by diverse groups. Science from the Southwest Biological Science Center and the Restoration Assessment and Monitoring Program for the Southwest (RAMPS) is helping these groups find common ground to manage this dynamic landscape.

RestoreNet is a networked experiment testing treatments for improving restoration in drylands. Find out more at www.usgs.gov/sbsc/ramps

A group of rainbow trout swims upstream in the Lees Ferry fishery downstream of Glen Canyon Dam in the Colorado River. 

A person fishing for rainbow trout or brown trout in the Lees Ferry fishery in the Colorado River downstream of Glen Canyon Dam in Grand Canyon National Park.

Flowering Arrowweed (Pluchea sericea) in a riparian plant experiment in a greenhouse, to assess how flooding or drought can affect this native stream-dependent species. Arrowweed is one of the species that grows abundantly along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS.

USGS scientists measure biological soil crust cover in the study grassland.