Mission Areas
Ecosystems
The USGS Ecosystems Mission Area, the biological research arm of the Department of the Interior (DOI), provides science to help America achieve sustainable management and conservation of its biological resources. This work is done within the broader mission of the USGS to serve the Nation with science that advances understanding of our natural resources and inform land and water stewardship.
Collaborative Conservation
What do gray wolves, manatees and bears have in common? They are just a few of the species that are part of important USGS research that informs U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decisions for endangered and threatened species.
Find out moreOutstanding in the Field
An Ecosystems Mission Area original podcast series that tells stories about our science, our adventures, and our efforts to better understand fish and wildlife and the ecosystems that support them.
Ep 3 - CWDWhere's our Science?
Find out where Ecosystems Science Centers, Field Stations, and Cooperative Research Units are located.
Browse by LocationNews
Bringing the Bubbles Home
As our cruise ends, lead scientist Amanda Demopoulos brings it all together and charts the path forward
Voyage of Luck
I cannot believe how lucky we’ve been.
Bringing the Lab to the Field
Usually when scientists do research, they go into the field, take samples, then bring them back to the lab. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill research engineer Howard Mendlovitz, working with Professor Chris Martens wants to reverse that.
Publications
Improving population estimates of threatened spectacled eiders: Correcting aerial counts for visibility bias
Listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1993, the Spectacled Eider (Somateria fischeri) population in western Alaska has since rebounded, prompting an assessment of their suitability for delisting. This assessment, however, is limited by aerial-based population estimates that are incompletely corrected for unobserved eiders....
Lewis, Tyler; Michael Swaim; Schmutz, Joel A.; Julian Fischer Safety in numbers: Cost-effective endangered species management for viable populations
We develop a bioeconomic model to identify the cost-effective control of an invasive species (rain-bow trout) to achieve a population viability goal for an endangered species (humpback chub) in the Grand Canyon of the U.S. southwest. The population viability optimization problem is no-toriously difficult to solve due to a probabilistic restriction...
Donovan, Pierce; Bair, Lucas S.; Yackulic, Charles B.; Springborn, Michael R.
Examination of movements and survival of Pahranagat roundtail chub (Gila robusta jordani) in the Pahranagat River and adjacent waters, Nevada, 2014–18
Executive SummaryThe Pahranagat roundtail chub (Gila robusta jordani; hereinafter “chub”) was federally listed as endangered in 1970 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1970). In the decades following the listing, the chub has declined to extremely low numbers (Tuttle and others, 1990; Guadalupe, 2014). Loss of available habitat appears to be one of...
Martin, Barbara A.; Hayes, Brian S.; Harris, Alta C.