Images

Desert marigold (Baileya multiradiata) blooming in a monitoring quadrat at a RestoreNet site in Northern Arizona. Photo by Laura Shriver (USGS).

USGS Biological Science Technician Claudia Dimartini poses with a long camelthorn (Alhagi maurorum) rhizome (underground root structure from which new plants can propagate that was exposed in a wash at the Deadman Wash Confluence Area. Photo by Laura Shriver (USGS).

A landscape of sagebrush (Artemisia tridentada) and yellow sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis) on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana.

A storm rolls in during field work at the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana. Crews were measuring plant cover and other site characteristics. Sagebrush and yellow sweet clover are visible.

A five-person USGS crew collecting Rapid and Other Assessment and Monitoring (ROAM) density data in southwest Idaho. One person is inspecting a plant in the foreground, while the rest of the team are identifying and counting individual plants during a radial density belt. 

A downward-facing photo taken on a Rapid and Other Methods for Assessment and Monitoring (ROAM) plot that is within a fuel break. The photo includes a lot of gravel and bare ground, with intermixed small grasses, forbs, and shrubs. 

Many new big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) plants that have just sprouted from the ground in the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area in Idaho.

A field crew member collecting line-point intercept data at a Project ROAM (Rapid and Other Methods for Assessment and Monitoring) plot. A pin flag is dropped along a transect line and the vegetation it comes into contact with is recorded to estimate cover. 

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.

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

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.

Norman with graduate students from the Academic Department of Earth Sciences at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur (UABCS) teaching high school students from El Sargento at the “Caminos Del Agua” Water Festival  (photo by Alfredo Martinez, March 11, 2024).

RAMPS Biologist Sarah Costanzo rides a seedball bike designed to create seedballs (mixes of seed, clay, and other materials) for RestoreNet restoration

Sagebrush Collaborative Restoration Landscapes capture over a third of the remaining intact Core Sagebrush Areas across the sagebrush biome.

Sagebrush Collaborative Restoration Landscapes capture over a third of the remaining intact Core Sagebrush Areas across the sagebrush biome.

Sagebrush Collaborative Restoration Landscapes capture over a third of the remaining intact Core Sagebrush Areas across the sagebrush biome.

Sagebrush Collaborative Restoration Landscapes capture over a third of the remaining intact Core Sagebrush Areas across the sagebrush biome.

Layer Sources

A soil moisture data logger buried in the ground is a specialized instrument designed to measure and record the moisture content of soil over time. Here's how it generally functions:

RAMPS Coordinator Laura Shriver (left) and RAMPS Biologist Sarah Costanzo (right) pose with a poster describing the RAMPS project RestoreNet at the Society for Ecological Restoration – Southwest Chapter 2023 Annual Conference in Sant

RAMPS and the Institute for Applied Ecology (IAE) get together to discuss potential seeding network across New Mexico at the Society for Ecological Restoration – Southwest Chapter 2023 Annual Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico.