Ecosystem Services

This project seeks to develop tools and datasets that provide insights to the common ground between flood-risk reduction and ecosystem services on large-river floodplains of the Central United States. Floodplains of large rivers are valued for their agricultural productivity and development potential, but recent floods have demonstrated the high costs and lack of resiliency when floodplains are...

This project uses new and existing field data to assess forest restoration treatment effects across broad spatial and temporal scales. WERC's Dr. Phil van Mantgem and project partners are considering the effects of restoration treatments in terms of forest structure, forest stand development, subsequent tree mortality patterns mortality, and how climate influences the success or failure of...

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...

Estuaries and healthy coastal habitats are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. They provide a variety of benefits, including habitat and food for fish and wildlife, flood and erosion protection, improved water quality, increased carbon sequestration, as well as beautiful scenery and opportunities for recreation. Along the U.S. Pacific Coast, both the San Francisco Bay estuary and the...

This research theme addresses several issues important in deriving accurate and precise estimates of fatality at wind and solar power-generation facilities.

Starting in 2017, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researchers and land managers are co-producing a network of restoration field trial sites on Department of Interior (DOI) and surrounding lands in the southwestern U.S. The network systematically tests restoration treatments across a broad range of environmental gradients. Each site in the network is used to test suitable seed mixes and treatments...

Biological production represents the total amount of living material (biomass) that was produced during a defined period of time. This production is important because some of it is used for food and some is valued for recreation, it is a direct measure of total ecosystem processes, and it sustains biological diversity. Production is a measure of energy flow, and is therefore a natural currency for...

Today, urban development is rapidly fragmenting the open spaces of western North America. This can affect species that need large areas to roam, live at low densities, and tend to come into conflict with people. Dr. Erin Boydston studies the connectivity of wide-ranging mammals to inform long-term conservation planning in southern California. High levels of connectivity between wildlife...

The JEM Biological Database offers secure data storage in relational databases, as well as web applications to manage, search, analyze, and report on captured data.

More than half of contiguous U.S. coastal wetlands are located along the Gulf Coast. These highly-productive wetlands support many ecosystem goods and services and fish and wildlife habitat. Historically, coastal wetlands have adapted to sea-level changes via lateral and vertical movement on the landscape. As sea levels rise in the future, coastal wetlands will adapt and migrate landward into...