Decision Support and Statistics

USGS is applying decision analysis to identify cost-effective methods for controlling invasive species like the Argentine black and white tegu.

National Wildlife Refuges provide habitat for important fish and wildlife species and services that benefit coastal communities, like storm-surge protection. USGS scientists are helping coastal refuges plan for and adapt to sea-level rise.

Melaleuca is an invasive tree that is highly problematic in the Everglades, threatening native wildlife and habitat. USGS is helping to improve management strategies for the invasive plant.

The Gulf Coastal Prairie (GCP) includes areas within Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas as well as Mexico. The GCP Landscape Conservation Cooperative aims to conserve prairie grasslands which helps migratory birds and other wildlife that rely on these ecosystems.

USGS scientists have been involved for a number of years in the development and use of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). This methodology represents an approach to statistical modeling that focuses on the study of complex cause-effect hypotheses about the mechanisms operating in systems. SEM is increasingly used in ecological and environmental studies and this site seeks to provide educational...

Long-term monitoring data in the Manatee Individual Photo-identification System (MIPS), developed and coordinated by WARC-Sirenia Project in collaboration with Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute and Mote Marine Laboratory, are the basis for modeling manatee demography rates.

Manatees are tropical to subtropical in distribution and, with few exceptions, Florida is the northern limit of their natural winter range. The availability of warm-water habitat during winter is critical for the future persistence of the population in Florida.

The Joint Ecosystem Modeling team is developing and applying ecological models and other decision support tools for Greater Everglades restoration project planning.

The establishment and proliferation of exotic plants and animals can interfere with native ecological processes and can cause severe stress to sensitive ecosystems.

The goal of this project is to educate resource professionals in the tools and techniques of structured decision making and adaptive management.

Modeling both potential changes in climate and responses of species and habitats can increase certainty in management decisions by helping managers to understand the range of possible species and habitat responses under different alternative futures. Climate envelope modeling is one type of modeling that can be useful in understanding species and habitat responses to climate change because it...

Peninsular Florida is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change in the United States. With complex socioeconomic and ecology dynamics and a large number of governing agencies involved in conservation planning, USGS worked to created an appropriate framework for landscape conservation cooperative-scale decision-making across current conservation planning agencies and jurisdictions.