Effects on Animals

Long-term wildlife monitoring is imperative for understanding population changes that can inform managers. However, working with population data collected by different organizations across multiple jurisdictions and over long time periods can be challenging due to varying data management approaches and organizational priorities. Through this project, we aimed to collaborate with eleven state...

Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus) are at the center of state and national land use policies largely because of their unique life-history traits and their role as an ecological indicator for the health of sagebrush ecosystems. Multiple science centers with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in conjunction with Colorado State University (CSU) have developed the Greater Sage-Grouse...

Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Colorado State University (CSU) collaborated with the Bureau of Land Management and state wildlife agencies to develop a hierarchical population monitoring framework for managing greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus) populations and the sagebrush ecosystems they depend on for survival and reproduction. This greater sage-grouse...

Land and wildlife managers require accurate estimates of sensitive species’ trends to help guide conservation decisions that maintain biodiversity and promote healthy ecosystems. Multiple science centers with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in conjunction with Colorado State University (CSU), developed a hierarchical population monitoring framework for managing greater sage-grouse (...

The sagebrush biome is one of the largest ecosystems in North America. Encompassing nearly one-third of the continental U.S., it provides critical resources for millions of Americans and a home for hundreds of plants and animal species in the West. Natural resource management in sagebrush ecosystems can be complex, and science can support management decisions by providing knowledge and tools to...

Through a collaborative effort with multiple state and federal agencies, university researchers, and individual stakeholders, we are producing a set of predictive seasonal habitat maps for greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus) spanning the entirety of the species’ U.S. distribution. This is the largest habitat modeling effort of its kind for the species and uses a large, compiled...

Federal agencies manage wildland fire in many ways, including broad-scale fire management planning and site-specific fire and fuels management actions. Federal policy requires agencies to use science in fire management planning and environmental effects analyses. However, fire managers have limited time to compile and synthesize science. The USGS is collaborating with fire management staff across...

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...

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...

To support strategic ecosystem management across the imperiled sagebrush steppe in Wyoming, USA, we developed an extension of the Prioritizing Restoration of Sagebrush Ecosystems Tool (PReSET). Our expanded tool leverages emerging spatial data resources to provide a structured but customizable set of scenarios that can guide landscape-scale planning efforts by prioritizing conservation and...