Wildlife and Terrestrial Species

The Challenge: The health of the abundant waterfowl species of Chesapeake Bay has become a major concern due to the spread of Avian Influenza (AI) across North America and the role of waterfowl as a vector of AI. For decades, the health of the Bay’s waterfowl has been affected by the degradation of water quality and food supply due to industrial contaminants,agricultural run-off, pollution from...

Waterbirds such as shorebirds, waders, and ducks depend on healthy and productive estuaries to “fuel up” for long distance migrations along the Pacific Flyway. Estuarine ecosystems include a mosaic of managed, natural, and restoring wetlands, and provide critical stop-over and wintering areas for federally protected migratory bird species. USGS WERC’s Dr. Susan De La Cruz works with federal, state...

The North American Breeding Bird Survey program (BBS) provides critical science-based population data for more than 400 bird species to improve our understanding of how these federally entrusted species respond to environmental variability and ecosystem change. The BBS generates results that inform Federal wildlife managers in the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, Department of...

Research in population biology is concerned with factors affecting the change in a population over time, including births, deaths, immigration and emigration. Despite the potential importance of immigration and emigration, empirical data on movement patterns are lacking in many systems.

Selected Bibliography of Broad-scale Research Involving USGS and Conducted Across the 1002 Area and the NPR-A of Alaska Compiled as of 12/17/2018

Common loons often migrate several hundred miles to reach coastal waters during fall migration. Information about this part of the loon's life history is not well known. The use of satellite telemetry allows biologists to track loon movements through distant migrations and during winter. A transmitter attached to a radiomarked loon periodically sends a signal which is detected by a satellite-based...

Small mammals (including three species of rats and one species of mongoose) and social Hymenoptera (order of insects including ants and yellowjacket wasps) form two groups of alien predators in Hawaiian ecosystems. The combined impact of these predators has resulted in substantial loss or reduction of native biota in the Pacific. Furthermore, given the past successes of managing or excluding feral...

Initial studies suggest terrestrial Hawaiian plant species may be vulnerable to climate change. However, these models lack information on species-specific traits that affect ecological and evolutionary responses of species to climate change. Research is needed to refine current vulnerability models and apply these to Pacific Islands outside Hawai‘i.

Montane plant communities in widely separated intact natural environments of the world have responded to changes in precipitation and temperature regimes by shifting both margins and core distributional ranges upward in elevation. Reduced evapotranspiration rates in cooler climate zones at higher elevation may compensate for less precipitation and higher temperatures within species’ former ranges...

The presence of top predators is considered an indication of ecosystem health and can play a vital role in ecosystem functioning by promoting biodiversity, and can contribute to regulating prey species abundance, and herbivory. In the intermountain west, the largest mammalian predator and obligate carnivore is the mountain lion, Puma concolor. This elusive and wide-ranging predator occupies a...

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) is an interdisciplinary group of scientists and biologists responsible for long-term monitoring and research efforts on grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). The team was formed by the Department of the Interior (DOI) in 1973 as a direct result of controversy surrounding the closure of open pit garbage dumps within Yellowstone...

Three federal wildlife refuge complexes on the upper Texas coast include portions of the Columbia Bottomlands and other forests that are important for migratory birds and possibly bats: Texas Mid-Coast, Trinity River, and Chenier Plain.