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Breeding Bird Survey

Each year during the height of the avian breeding season, participants skilled in avian identification collect bird population data.

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North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat)

Providing the information needed manage bat populations, detect early warning signs of population declines, & estimate extinction risk

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Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative

Integrated Studies of Wildlife and Habitat on the Energy Frontier

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We need you!

Citizen scientists are crucial to the National Phenology Network

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Pollinators & Monarchs

Pollinators and Monarchs are crucial contributors to our environment and society

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Status and Trends Program

To protect, conserve, and restore the living resources—plants, animals, habitats, ecosystems—entrusted to their care, land and resource managers must understand the condition, or status (e.g., abundance, distribution, productivity, health), of those resources as well as their trends (i.e., how these variables change over time).

EMA Animal Welfare Assurance Website

How do we know it's spring?

2018 spring leaf index anomaly animation

The First Leaf and First Bloom Indices are synthetic measures of these early season events in plants, based on recent temperature conditions. Get weekly updates about spring leaf out and blooms from the National Phenology Network!

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Restoration Assessment & Monitoring Program for the Southwest (RAMPS)

RAMPS scientist meeting with two land managers in arid shrubland

RAMPS seeks to assist U.S. Department of the Interior and other land management agencies and private partners in developing successful restoration strategies for dryland ecosystems.

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Learn more about the Status and Trends Program

Follow the links below to learn more about our science.

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News

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SBSC TRIBAL PARTNERSHIPS

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Ecological Drought Forecast Tool for Drylands

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Tips for Dryland Restoration - Summer 2021

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Publications

Evidence for a duplicated mitochondrial region in Audubon’s shearwater based on MinION sequencing

Mitochondrial genetic markers have been extensively used to study the phylogenetics and phylogeography of many birds, including seabirds of the order Procellariiformes. Evidence suggests that part of the mitochondrial genome of Procellariiformes, especially albatrosses, is duplicated, but no DNA fragment covering the entire duplication has been sequenced. We sequenced the complete mitochondrial ge
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Ecosystems, Status and Trends Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Taxonomic evaluation of the three “type” specimens of the fringe-footed shrew, Sorex fimbripes Bachman, 1837 (Mammalia: Soricidae) and recommended nomenclatural status of the name

John Bachman (1837:391) described the “fringe-footed shrew,” Sorex fimbripes Bachman, 1837, in his landmark monograph on the North American Soricidae (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla), in which he recognized 13 uniquely New World species. Characters he attributed to S. fimbripes resulted in its being interpreted as a tiny, semi-aquatic species and contributed to the complexity of its subsequent taxonomic h
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Ecosystems, Status and Trends Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

American Recent Eulipotyphla: Nesophontids, Solenodons, Moles, and Shrews in the New World

The mammalian taxonomic order Eulipotyphla is comprised of the living taxonomic families Erinaceidae (gymnures, hedgehogs, and moonrats), Solenodontidae (solenodonts), Soricidae (shrews), and Talpidae (desmans and moles). Morphological and molecular studies continue to alter our view of relationships within and among these families, and this research has added considerably to our understanding of
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Ecosystems, Status and Trends Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
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Science

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Endangered Rusty Patched Bumblebee (Bumbus affinis)

Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

The USGS Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program designs and develops large and small scale surveys for native bees. As part of that program we also develop identification tools and keys for native bee species. One aspect of creating those tools is creating accurate and detailed pictures of native bees and the plants and insects they interact with.
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Ecosystems, Status and Trends Program, Wildlife Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center
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Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

The USGS Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program designs and develops large and small scale surveys for native bees. As part of that program we also develop identification tools and keys for native bee species. One aspect of creating those tools is creating accurate and detailed pictures of native bees and the plants and insects they interact with.
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Rafinesque's Cabree

Rafinesque’s Mammals

The Challenge: Taxonomic nomenclature relies, in part, upon an accurate taxonomic history in order to establish the correct name for a taxon. Constantine S. Rafinesque (1783–1840), was a knowledgeable North American natural historian who was is responsible for describing and naming such iconic American mammals as the mule deer [Odocoileus hemionus (Rafinesque, 1817)] and the white-footed mouse...
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Ecosystems, Status and Trends Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center
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Rafinesque’s Mammals

The Challenge: Taxonomic nomenclature relies, in part, upon an accurate taxonomic history in order to establish the correct name for a taxon. Constantine S. Rafinesque (1783–1840), was a knowledgeable North American natural historian who was is responsible for describing and naming such iconic American mammals as the mule deer [Odocoileus hemionus (Rafinesque, 1817)] and the white-footed mouse...
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Inverted x-rays of femurs of a least shrew

Survival of the Least Fit: Incidence of Physical Trauma in a Wild Mammal Community

The Challenge: It has been generally considered that a severe injury to a wild mammal that seemingly limits its ability to forage for food or escape predators will almost certainly lead to that individual’s demise. Inspection of skeletons of wild caught small mammals, however, has revealed a surprising number of individuals with healed fractures of the skeletal bones―including the primary...
By
Ecosystems, Status and Trends Program, Eastern Ecological Science Center
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Survival of the Least Fit: Incidence of Physical Trauma in a Wild Mammal Community

The Challenge: It has been generally considered that a severe injury to a wild mammal that seemingly limits its ability to forage for food or escape predators will almost certainly lead to that individual’s demise. Inspection of skeletons of wild caught small mammals, however, has revealed a surprising number of individuals with healed fractures of the skeletal bones―including the primary...
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