Habitat Management

Rangelands are natural ecosystems where the native vegetation consists predominantly of grasses, grass-like plants, forbs, or shrubs. Rangelands include natural grasslands, savannas, shrublands, oak and pinyon-juniper woodlands, many deserts, tundra, alpine communities, marshes, and wet meadows.

Whereas the other themes of the Contaminant Ecology Research Program focus on where, why, and how contaminants cycle and bioaccumulate in ecological systems, this theme is focused on determining what happens at environmentally relevant concentrations.

Greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are the most visible of >350 plant and wildlife species that depend on sagebrush. Their conservation status was determined by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2010 to be warranted for listing but precluded by higher priorities. Habitat and population fragmentation, coupled with inadequate regulatory mechanisms to control development on public...

The Migratory Connectivity Project (MCP) is an effort to research, collect, and provide information about animal movement and full lifecycle biology, particularly for North American bird species, to agencies and NGOs interested in their conservation.

FRESC scientists investigate whole-system processes and relationships across space and time in order to advance understanding of natural, managed, and disturbed ecosystems. This includes research, monitoring, remote sensing, modeling, and synthesis to describe the patterns of change across landscapes and the biological and physical processes that generate them.

Desert landscapes are rapidly changing due to increases in invasive plant species, frequency of wildfires, urban and energy development, recreational use, military training, and climate variation. Dr. Todd Esque, USGS researchers, and collaborators are working together to investigate these changes and provide managers with key information that can be used to manage natural resources more...

Coastal estuaries that contain marshes and mangroves are currently being reshaped by changing ocean and atmospheric conditions through prolong drought, sea-level rise and increased extreme storm events. Many projected increases in sea-level are expected to result in loss of tidal wetlands and their component species. In addition, changing sediment loads, extreme tide and storm events, and shifting...

With sea level rise, how will the coastal habitats of the San Francisco Bay Estuary change over the next 100 years? Mapping and modeling studies by Dr. Karen Thorne, WERC scientists, and partners have produced scenarios for this important coastal ecosystem.

There is a growing consensus among resource managers to use native plant materials for ecological restoration of degraded drylands. Some plant species may be suitable for re-introduction across broad environmental gradients. Other species may fail under narrower conditions, or their re-introduction may have genetic consequences for local ecotypes, particularly when adapting to future climate...

Surface disturbances ranging from military training, recreation, energy exploration and development, and wildfires impact a large majority of federal lands in the western US, but the ecological and economic impacts are poorly understood. Explore this webpage to learn how Dr. Lesley DeFalco and her research team are currently evaluating and refining conventional approaches for post-fire restoration...

The southwestern desert region is home to many sensitive species. Species are at-risk due to past, present, and future changes to the landscape. WERC’s Dr. Todd Esque, field researchers, and collaborators are using models, monitoring plans, and decision-support tools to provide land managers with the resources they need to answer questions about how environmental change influences plants, animals...

Fuel conditions and fire regimes in western forests and deserts have been altered due to past land management, biological invasions, and recent extreme weather events and climate shifts. These changes have created extreme fire risk to local and regional communities, threatening their economic health related to wildland recreation, forest production, livestock operations, and other uses of public...