Images

Cattle inside a grazing enclosure at Canyonlands Research Center (The Nature Conservancy) in southern Utah.

Covers of the Plant Conservation Alliance National Seed Strategy Progress Report for 2022 and 2023 (left) and the National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration (right).

A USGS field crew working on soil sampling, plant community monitoring, and soil water infiltration in the Colorado 'front range.'

A USGS scientist prepares a mini-disc infiltrometer to assess soil water infiltration. The degree to which water can infiltrate soil is closely tied to soil carbon content.

USGS scientists dig small ‘micro pits' to collect soil for testing. The team is careful to minimize the impact to the environment. Soil is stored on a tarp while sampling so it can be returned to the pit afterwards.

USGS scientists identifying plant community composition in Larimer County, Colorado. Information on plant community composition is critical for understanding differences in soil carbon-responses to exotic annual grass invasion between sites. 

A USGS scientist uses the grid-point intercept method to characterize plant communities in Larimer County, Colorado. The grid-point intercept method uses points along a grid to sample plant species or ground cover within a larger plot.

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).

Sarah Costanzo (USGS) collects soil stability data prior to installing RestoreNet version 2.0 treatments at Canyonlands Research Center near Moab, UT. Photo by Laura Shriver (USGS).

Laura Shriver at the soil and restoration science booth at the USGS Flagstaff Science Center Open House. The booth included native seeds, biocrusts, a soil texturing activity, and science brief handouts.

Albert Klein (University of Arizona) shows the pollinator garden designed and installed by University of Arizona students at the Santa Rita Experimental Range. Photo by Laura Shriver (USGS).

From left to right, Ember Bradbury (Colorado State University), Sarah Costanzo (USGS), Sonoma Brill (USGS), and Laura Shriver (USGS) celebrate installing a RestoreNet site at Canyonlands Research Center near Moab, UT.

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 stick-point intercept data at a Project ROAM (Rapid and Other Methods for Assessment and Monitoring) plot. A meter-long 'stick' is dropped and five recordings of vegetation are collected by dropping a pin flag along the stick. 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).

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