Images

A flowering agave along the Colorado River in Glen Canyon, AZ. Photo by Joel Sankey, USGS.

Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps / Science Conservation Corps / Grand Canyon Youth crewmembers on a Colorado River trip with National Park Service ecologist Colleen Flanagan-Pritz, who is explaining what they will be studying at Little Nankoweap Creek. Photo by Adriana Huizar, Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps.

Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps Grand Canyon Youth participants in a USGS boat on the Colorado River, June 2024. Photo by Adriana Huizar, Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps.

Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps and Science Conservation Corps crewmembers receive a briefing on the Dragonfly Mercury Project from NPS Ecologist Colleen Flanagan-Pritz and Research Ecologist Chris Kotalik while standing in the water to keep cool on a Colorado River trip, June 2024. Photo by Shannon Sartain, USGS, SBSC.
 

An eDNA autosampler device with the lid open, showing the console and inner mechanisms.

Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps / Science Conservation Corps youth on a Colorado River trip. Here they listen for instructions on gathering dragonfly larvae for a study with National Park Service (NPS) ecologist, before hiking up the Little Nankoweap Creek drainage. Photo by Adriana Huizar, Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps.

An eDNA autosampler console screen.

Two cows on the range in a grazing experiment study site at Bar T Bar Ranch, AZ. Photo by Laura Shriver, USGS, SBSC. 

Cattle inside a grazing enclosure at the Bar T Bar Ranch RestoreNet site in Northern Arizona.

From left to right: RAMPS Ecologist Seth Munson, RAMPS Coordinator Laura Shriver, RAMPS Biologist Sarah Costanzo, NAU postdoctoral researcher Collin VanBuren, and Diablo Trust Program Manager Corinne LaViolette. Photo by Seth Munson (USGS).

Newly installed RestoreNet Version 2.0 treatment plots at Bar T Bar Ranch in Northern Arizona. Left: a plot that received pitting + seedballs + live topsoil inoculum (in the seedballs), Right: a plot that received live topsoil inoculum (spread across the plot) and direct seeding.

USGS Astrogeology staff table at the Spring 2024 STEM event. Photo courtesy of Lori Pigue, USGS Astrogeology.

USGS Geology, Minerals, Energy, Geophysics Science Center (GMEG) staff display rocks and maps and talk to kids about geology at the 2024 STEM event.

Riparian vegetation along Colorado River near Whitmore in Grand Canyon. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS Southwest Biological Science Center.

A honey mesquite tree (Prosopis glandulosa) with the Colorado River and Diamond Peak in the distance. Photo by Emily Palmquist, USGS Southwest Biological Science Center.

A desert tortoise in the shade of a solar panel at the Gemini Solar Project. Gemini developed measures to avoid, minimize and mitigate impacts to the environment during construction and operation, including slightly raised fences that allow desert tortoises, other reptiles and small mammals to pass underneath.

A desert tortoise in the shade of a solar panel at Gemini Solar Project. The fencing at the array is slightly raised to allow smaller animals to pass underneath. Gemini developed measures to avoid, minimize and mitigate impacts to the environment during construction and operation. USGS collaborates with the Bureau of Land Management on research at this array.

The cover page of a USGS Southwest Biological Science Center, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center cooperator publication prepared as part of an Interagency Agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation.

Seedballs produced by a seedball bike drying before field implementation. The seedball bike was constructed at USGS with help from the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University for RestoreNet restoration experiments.

Acoustic data recording can be used to identify bats to species and to quantify bat activity. Here, river runners gather around a tablet and microphone to view live translations of the ultrasonic sounds that bats use to navigate the world. Software translates recordings into visuals and sounds that are audible to human ears.

A staff photo of Trevor Faske, research ecologist and plant conservation geneticist at the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center.