Images

A USGS scientist collects plant data at a long-term grassland study site underneath a drought shelter that excludes ~30% of incoming precipitation as part of a study to understand drought impacts on Colorado Plateau rangelands. Photo taken April 2025. The shelter was installed in 2010.

U.S. Forest Service personnel (center) and volunteers hold eDNA sampling equipment by the Little Colorado River, AZ.  The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) researcher, Thomas Franklin, is the eDNA Program Leader at the USFS National Genomics Center for Wildlife and Fish Conservation and partners with the USGS on this research. 

Flowering Abronia elliptica (Fragrant white sand verbena) in Grand Canyon near the Colorado River. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS.

Oenothera elata ssp. hookeri, a type of evening primrose, is a native plant in AZ. This photo was taken in Grand Canyon near the Colorado River during routine vegetation monitoring by the USGS Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center.

USGS scientist Kimberly Dibble works with environmental DNA (eDNA) equipment on the bank of a shallow section of Havasu Creek, Grand Canyon. The Southwest Biological Science Center is partnering with Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Forest Service, U.S.

A bright sunset reflects orange light on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, at Basalt Camp. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS.

Bebbia juncea, a native plant growing in western Grand Canyon. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS.

The inside of an eDNA filter cup showing the membrane that captures aquatic eDNA material. This one is red from high turbidity/river sediment.

USGS Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC) ecologist and botanist Laura Shriver (center) and colleagues at the Society for Range Management Conference. Laura gave a talk titled, "RestoreNet: a field trial network to improve restoration outcomes across environmental gradients".

RestoreNet is a networked ecological restoration experiment spanning drylands of the American Southwest. It is engaging diverse partners to develop methods for successful revegetation projects that mitigate the effects of drought, invasion by non-native species, and land use practices.

Illustration of 3 native fish in the Colorado River, Grand Canyon: humpback chub (Gila cypha, upper left), flannelmouth sucker (Catostomus latipinnis, middle), and bluehead sucker (Catostomus discobolus, lower right). Illustration by Lindsay Hansen, USGS.

The Little Colorado River (on left) and Colorado River (on right), near the Little Colorado River confluence, looking upstream. 

A RestoreNet Field Trial Network restoration experiment site in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona, in spring 2024. Photo by Laura Shriver (USGS).

Accomplishments in Native Seed Development.

Scenic view of the red rock mesas surrounding Canyonlands Research Center (The Nature Conservancy) in southern Utah.

Covers of the Plant Conservation Alliance National Seed Strategy Progress Report for 2022 and 2023 (left) and the National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration (right).

Cattle inside a grazing enclosure at Canyonlands Research Center (The Nature Conservancy) in southern Utah.

Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC) research garden hoop houses at the USGS Flagstaff campus. The hoop houses block natural precipitation, so the only water received is from treatments.

Native Phragmites (Phragmites australis spp. americanus), or common reed, along the Colorado River near Tanner Rapids (part of the Tanner Trail), in Grand Canyon. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS Southwest Biological Science Center.

Desert marigold (Baileya multiradiata) blooming in a monitoring quadrat at a RestoreNet site in Northern Arizona. Photo by Laura Shriver (USGS).

USGS cartographer Ben Wheeler discusses planetary geology with the public in the Photogrammetry Lab at the Astrogeology building on the Flagstaff USGS science campus, during an Open House.