Sagebrush-Associated Species

The Conservation Efforts Database (CED) is a secure online data repository that collects, stores, and retrieves spatially explicit, spatially obscure, and non-spatial information on species and habitat conservation and management actions. The CED is designed to allow data collection from all interested partners including federal, state, local, non-government organizations, universities, private...

The CED Gunnison Sage-grouse Recovery Module was released in 2020 and is designed to capture any effort designed to benefit Gunnison sage-grouse recovery. This includes habitat restoration and any activities that contribute to the recovery of Gunnison sage-grouse, a federally listed threatened species. While similar to the Sagebrush Module, The Gunnison Sage-Grouse Recovery module contains fields...

The CED Sagebrush Module, first released in 2014, captures any conservation effort, enhancement, restoration, plan, or action related to the sagebrush landscape or activities that benefit sagebrush-dependent species. The CED was originally focused only on greater sage-grouse and thus, most of the records currently in our database are related to this species, but, starting in 2019, we expanded our...

USGS researchers are using remote-sensing and other broadscale datasets to study and predict recovery of sagebrush across the sage-grouse range, assessing influence of disturbance, restoration treatments, soil moisture, and other ecological conditions on trends in sagebrush cover. The results will be used to inform conservation prioritization models, economic analyses, projections of future...

In partnership with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and other partners, scientists from USGS Fort Collins Science Center are working to create a suite of prioritization scenarios that will inform adaptive management for Gunnison sage-grouse.

Sagebrush ecosystems represent one of the most imperiled systems in North America and face continued and widespread degradation due to multiple factors including invasive species and increased human development. Effective sagebrush management must consider how to best conserve and restore habitats to stem the decline of species that rely on them, especially given limited conservation resources. To...

Within areas of overlapping sagebrush and pinyon-juniper ecosystems, wildlife populations are declining due to habitat fragmentation and degradation, changing environments, and human development. However, management to bolster species associated with one ecosystem may result in negative consequences for species associated with the other. Thus, land managers are challenged with balancing which...

In 2021, the Fort Collins Science Center initiated a research effort to estimate road age and annual traffic volumes across the majority of roads in Wyoming for assessing impacts to wildlife. Data on roads often focus on the ‘where’ (for example, spatial features) but neglect the ‘when’ (for example, road age) or ‘how much’ (for example, traffic volume). Knowing these characteristics is critical...

Many revegetation projects are intended to benefit focal wildlife species. Yet, few scope the ability of revegetation efforts to yield habitat. To investigate the ability of alternative sagebrush planting strategies to recover habitat conditions for wildlife like sage-grouse,  USGS and Colorado State University scientists developed a spatial vegetation-habitat recovery model. Scientists combined...

We are working with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) to pilot an expansion of the Prioritizing Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems Tool (PReSET; Duchardt et al. 2021) across northwestern Colorado. We are in the initial phase of a two-phase project where we are leveraging existing data resources to provide customized scenarios that directly guide landscape-scale conservation delivery by CPW. This...

Arid shrublands of western North America face growing threats from disturbances such as wildfire, drought, and invasive species. These threats are increasingly altering the sagebrush ( Artemisia species) biome and degrading habitat for species of conservation concern such as greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus). Effective management and restoration are needed to slow or reverse these...

Sage-grouse, iconic birds of the American West, have experienced dramatic reductions and fragmentation of habitat, resulting in significant conservation concern. Genetic information can help inform priorities for protection and habitat restoration as well as strategies for translocations, but may be difficult for resource managers to find, interpret, and use in their decision making. In this work...