Climate Change and Drought

USGS Southwest Biological Science Center's Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center leadership and PIs prepared a cooperator publication and a presentation that report on modeling results to evaluate potential effects of reservoir management on various resources in Lake Powell and Grand Canyon.

In drylands, short-term extreme droughts can have profound ecosystem effects, depending on the timing (seasonality) of drought and the sensitivities of the dominant plants and plant functional types. Past work suggests that cool season drought may disproportionately impact regionally important grass and shrub species. In this study, we are examining the impacts of extreme seasonal drought on...

In drylands, chronic reductions in water availability (press-drought) through reduced precipitation and increased temperatures may have profound ecosystem effects, depending on the sensitivities of the dominant plants and plant functional types. In this study, we are examining the impacts of moderate, but long-term chronic drought using a network of 40 drought shelters on the Colorado Plateau...

Approximately 35% of the US and approximately 82% of DOI lands are “drylands” found throughout the western US. These lands contain oil, gas, oil shale, shale oil, and tar sand deposits and the exploration for and extraction of these resources has resulted in hundreds of thousands of operating and abandoned wells across the West. These arid and semi-arid lands have unique soil and plant communities...

In an era of rapid land use changes and shifting climates, it is imperative that land managers and policymakers have actionable and current information available for decision processes. In this work, we seek to meet these needs through new data products and decision support tools built on digital soil mapping, new vegetation cover maps, agency inventory and monitoring data sets, and cutting-edge...

Grand Canyon National Park is a hotspot for bat diversity. Twenty-two bat species have been documented in the Park, more than any other national park unit.

The saguaro cactus ( Carnegiea gigantea ) is a keystone species that grows only in the Sonoran Desert of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. The USGS’ Southwest Biological Science Center is working to better understand the species’ biological features, its role as a keystone species that supports greater than 100 other plant and animal species, and its responses to climate change...

In the Upper Colorado River Basin, smallmouth bass ( Micropterus dolomieu ) are considered the greatest threat to native fishes and have been linked to declines in federally protected humpback chub ( Gila cypha ), including one population that was rapidly extirpated in the past. Long-term management efforts have been underway to remove smallmouth bass from rivers in the Upper Basin, but smallmouth...

Did you know that moths can be pollinators? Even more amazing is that Joshua trees, the scraggly icons of the Mojave Desert, require a single moth species to ensure fertile seed production. The association between the Joshua tree and its pollinating moth is a rare example of an obligate mutualism, which means that the species are entirely dependent upon each other. Joshua trees depend on the moth...

Soils are the foundation of terrestrial ecosystems. They provide critical services including supplying a substrate and the nutrients necessary for plant growth, retaining moisture from precipitation, filtering contaminants from percolating waters, and acting as a sink of carbon. Healthy soils are key to sustaining both human and ecosystem health. However, global- and regional-scale disturbances...

The federally-listed threatened humpback chub is a native fish of the Colorado River. Despite the environmental changes to the river following the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, humpback chub persists alongside nonnative species, including rainbow trout. The pre-dam Colorado River experienced seasonal variation in temperature and discharge. Seasonal flooding resulted in sediments carried...

As restoration needs for natural landscapes grow due to higher frequency and/or intensity disturbances, pressure from invasive species, and impacts resulting from changing climates, considerable time and resources are being invested to guide the development and deployment of native plant materials (NPMs). Across lower elevations of the Colorado Plateau, a region composed primarily of public land...