Images

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

Kevin Coronado (Bureau of Indian Affairs intern, left) and Sarah Costanzo (USGS, right) monitor soil moisture in the seed coat greenhouse experiment.

Sand dropseed (Sporobolus cryptandrus) seeds coated with a hydrophobic seed coat designed to delay germination being planted in the Northern Arizona University research greenhouse. Photo by Sarah Costanzo (USGS).

Implementing the Seed Strategy creates jobs and provides career-building opportunities for students and early career professionals.

Monitoring bumble bees and flowering plants in alpine meadows at Glacier National Park, photo by Lindsay Dose (USGS contractor)

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:

The USGS Fire, Invasives, Restoration, and Ecology in Sagebrush Steppe (FIREss Team) plants a common garden of rubber rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa) near Boise, Idaho in collaboration with USFS.

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.

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

Workflow for integrating fire behavior modeling into post-fire hazard risk models. QUIC-Fire is a fast, 3-D simulation tool for prescribed fire planning. It can help managers understand the complex and dynamic behavior of wildland fires.

Looking down from the lookout point at Brink of Lower Falls, over the Yellowstone River, as it flows south into the distance.

Example of a three-dimensional QUIC-Fire simulation. The example site is located in the Dixie Fire, CA. QUIC-Fire is a fast, 3-D simulation tool for prescribed fire planning. It can help managers understand the complex and dynamic behavior of wildland fires.

Screen shot visualization of wind direction and velocity from a coupled/fire atmosphere model run of a wildfire (Dude Fire).

A scientist carefully collects a soil sample to determine soil density. Accurate soil density measurements are required for scaling soil carbon from the plot to the landscape. 

A still image taken from a USGS Flow Photo Explorer camera (Pl_06.5) shows drying in a small stream in Shenandoah National Park.

This site south of Rock Springs in Wyoming was not burned but cheatgrass has invaded the space between sagebrush shrubs. 

This site was burned but not invaded by exotic annual grasses. Many perennial bunchgrasses were present before the fire and were able to recover quickly afterwards.

Cheatgrass has invaded the space between sagebrush shrubs on this landscape south of Rock Springs in Wyoming. 

This landscape south of Rock Springs, Wyoming was burned and subsequently invaded by cheatgrass. Cheatgrass has a short growing season and leaves behind mats of dry, dead material that serves as wildfire fuel--contributing to a cycle of more frequent and larger wildfires and more plant invasions.

This landscape in Rabbit Valley in Colorado was burned and then invaded by the exotic annual grass cheatgrass. A formerly diverse plant community was replaced by a sea of highly flammable grass.