Max Post van der Burg is a Research Ecologist and Chief of the Spatial and Ecological Analytics Branch at the USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Jamestown, North Dakota.
His research interests include the population ecology of vertebrate and invertebrate species and developing quantitative analytical tools to understand patterns in ecological systems. Max’s work as a decision analyst focuses on helping management partners make more strategic decisions, while dealing with tradeoffs and uncertainty.
Professional Experience
Present: Chief of the Spatial and Ecological Analytics Branch and Research Ecologist, US Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Jamestown, ND
Education and Certifications
Ph.D., Applied Ecology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE
Science and Products
Filter Total Items: 15
Climate Effects on Prescribed Fire Implementation and Efficacy in Northern Mixed-Grass Prairie
Prescribed burning – planned, controlled fires conducted under weather and fuel conditions designed for safety and effectiveness – is a common practice used to maintain and restore native prairies in the Northern Great Plains. However, climate change will affect the number of days in a year, and when, suitable conditions for prescribed fires occur. For instance, warmer temperatures may shift thes
Developing a Decision Making and Climate Adaptation Framework for National Wildlife Refuge System Managers in the Midwest
Climate change presents new and compounding challenges to natural resource management. With shifting climate patterns, managers are confronted with difficult decisions on how to minimize climate impacts to habitats, infrastructure, and wildlife populations. Further, managers lack the information needed to make proactive management decisions. To address this problem, this project will develop a dec
Climate-Driven Connectivity Between Prairie-Pothole and Riparian Wetlands in the Upper Mississippi River Watershed: Implications for Wildlife Habitat and Water Quality
Wetland conservation in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) is a priority for Federal, State, NGO, and Tribal land managers to support migratory bird habitat in Minnesota and Iowa. These wetlands, known as depressional wetlands, also provide ecosystem services associated with flood water storage and enhancing down-stream water quality by storing and processing nutrients. Understanding how con
Science Team about Energy and Plains and Potholes Environments (STEPPE)
Brine Contamination to Plains and Potholes Environments from Energy Development in the Williston Basin
Decision analysis and support
Natural resource decision makers face numerous challenges in terms of making choices to solve complex management problems. Many of these challenges stem from being overwhelmed by too many choices, uncertain or delayed outcomes, and multiple stakeholders with conflicting desires. Decision analysis (a.k.a. structured decision making) is set of qualitative and quantitative tools for structuring an...
Science support for Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
Conservation practitioners have begun to realize that the many of the land management challenges of the 21st century require a broad scale problem solving approach. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) work to implement such an approach by serving as a venue for multiple conservation partners to work together (e.g. federal and state agencies), identify common problems and support the...
Potential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota
Federal resource managers in the Williston Basin need to understand how the recent expansion of oil and gas development is affecting a range of natural resources. The Bakken Federal Executive Group (BFEG), a group of representatives from over a dozen federal and tribal agencies, called for a report that synthesizes existing information about the potential impacts from energy development. The BFEG...
Spatiotemporal dynamics of grassland songbird populations in response to energy development in an agricultural landscape
The recent expansion of unconventional oil and gas development in the Williston Basin of North America has raised concerns among managers about potential negative effects of such development on grassland birds. Others, however, have argued that agricultural land use in the region has had a much larger impact and that energy development may be a comparatively small stressor for grassland birds...
Monitoring and modeling wetland chloride concentrations in relationship to oil and gas development
Extraction of oil and gas via unconventional methods is becoming an important aspect of energy production worldwide. Studying the effects of this development in countries where these technologies are being widely used may provide managers in other oil producing parts of the world with some insight in terms of concerns associated with development. Rapid increases in energy development in North...
Developing a sampling and modeling framework to support Dakota skipper management decisions
The presence or absence of an endangered species on the landscape can have significant policy implications for public land managers and private landowners. The Dakota Skipper, a grassland dependent butterfly, was recently listed as a threatened species under The Endangered Species Act in 2014. This listing has created controversy in the states of North and South Dakota because of the potential...
Enhancing Coastal Adaptation Planning at Gulf Islands National Seashore
Barrier islands are exposed to a range of natural and human-caused changes, including hurricanes, sea-level rise, and dredging. These changes have the potential to influence the ability of barrier islands to serve as a first-line of defense for the mainland during storm events. Gulf Islands National Seashore, a National Park Service unit in the northern Gulf of Mexico between Florida and Mississip
Protecting Cultural Resources in the Face of Climate Change
Climate change doesn’t just threaten our natural resources—it threatens our cultural resources, too. Cultural resources represent evidence of past human activity, such as archeological sites, or are of significance to a group of people traditionally associated with the resource, such as Native American ceremonial sites. Climate change is challenging the long-term persistence of many cultural res
Conversion of CRP Grasslands to Cropland, Grazing Lands, or Hayland: Effects on Breeding Bird Abundances in the Northern Great Plains, 1996-2017, data release
The data set consists of bird abundance data collected in undisturbed grassland fields enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and former CRP fields that were converted to cropland, grazing land, or hayland in nine counties in four states (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota) in the northern Great Plains. The study was initiated in 1990, but data were only included in thi
Filter Total Items: 31
Converting CRP grasslands to cropland, grazing land, or hayland: Effects on breeding bird abundances in the northern Great Plains of the United States
Recent declines of grassland bird populations in North America are linked to habitat loss and fragmentation associated with agricultural practices. One tool used to conserve soil, water and wildlife habitat on agricultural fields is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the largest agricultural conservation program in the United States. Managers and conservationi
Authors
Lawrence Igl, Deborah A. Buhl, Max Post van der Burg, Douglas H. Johnson
Data integration reveals dynamic and systematic patterns of breeding habitat use by a threatened shorebird
Incorporating species distributions into conservation planning has traditionally involved long-term representations of habitat use where temporal variation is averaged to reveal habitats that are most suitable across time. Advances in remote sensing and analytical tools have allowed for the integration of dynamic processes into species distribution modeling. Our objective was to develop a spatiote
Authors
Kristen S. Ellis, Michael J. Anteau, Garrett John Macdonald, Rose J. Swift, Megan Ring, Dustin L. Toy, Mark H. Sherfy, Max Post van der Burg
Large increases in methane emissions expected from North America’s largest wetland complex
Natural methane (CH4) emissions from aquatic ecosystems may rise because of human-induced climate warming, although the magnitude of increase is highly uncertain. Using an exceptionally large CH4 flux dataset (~19,000 chamber measurements) and remotely sensed information, we modeled plot- and landscape-scale wetland CH4 emissions from the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), North America’s largest wetla
Authors
Sheel Bansal, Max Post van der Burg, Rachel Fern, John W. Jones, Rachel Lo, Owen P. McKenna, Brian Tangen, Zhen Zhang, Robert A. Gleason
Research needs identified for potential effects of energy development activities on environmental resources of the Williston Basin, United States
Unconventional oil and gas development that uses horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing is rapidly changing the landscape and exponentially increasing oil production within the Williston Basin, especially in North Dakota and eastern Montana. The activities associated with unconventional oil and gas development are complex and wide reaching and include, in part, road and well-pad construction
Authors
Gregory C. Delzer, Max Post van der Burg
Potential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota—Executive summary
Executive SummaryThe Williston Basin, which includes parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the United States and parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada, has been explored as a potential source of energy resources since the early 20th century; however, commercially viable petroleum drilling and recovery began in earnest in the 1950s. When oil prices rose in the mid-1980s, the nu
Authors
Max Post van der Burg, Kevin C. Vining, Jill D. Frankforter
Potential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota—Physiography, climate, land use, and demographics
The Williston Basin has been a leading domestic oil and gas producing region. As energy demands have increased, so has energy development. A group of 13 Federal agencies and Tribal groups formed the Bakken Federal Executive Group to address common challenges associated with energy development, with a focus on understanding the cumulative environmental challenges attributed to oil and gas developme
Authors
Kevin C. Vining, Joanna N. Thamke, Max Post van der Burg
Potential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota
About this volumeThe Williston Basin, which includes parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the United States, has been a leading domestic oil and gas producing area. To better understand the potential effects of energy development on environmental resources in the Williston Basin, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, and in support of the nee
Potential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota—Species of conservation concern
The ecosystems of the Williston Basin provide direct and indirect benefits to society. These benefits include carbon sequestration, flood control, nutrient rich soils for agricultural productivity, and habitat for wildlife. This chapter’s main focus is on the effects of energy development on species that occupy the ecosystems in the Williston Basin. We compiled a list of documented species of cons
Authors
Max Post van der Burg, Amy J. Symstad, Lawrence D. Igl, David M. Mushet, Diane L. Larson, Glen A. Sargeant, David D. Harper, Aïda M. Farag, Brian A. Tangen, Michael J. Anteau
Balancing future renewable energy infrastructure siting and associated habitat loss for migrating whooping cranes
The expansion of human infrastructure has contributed to novel risks and disturbance regimes in most ecosystems, leading to considerable uncertainty about how species will respond to altered landscapes. A recent assessment revealed that whooping cranes (Grus americana), an endangered migratory waterbird species, avoid wind-energy infrastructure during migration. However, uncertainties regarding co
Authors
Kristen S. Ellis, Aaron T. Pearse, David A. Brandt, Mark T. Bidwell, Wade C. Harrell, Matthew J. Butler, Max Post van der Burg
Grassland conservation supports migratory birds and produces economic benefits for the commercial beekeeping industry in the U.S. Great Plains
Although declines in grassland birds have been documented, national initiatives to conserve grasslands and their biota have fallen short in part because the non-market values of natural ecosystems and species are often not recognized in political decision making. Identifying shared, anthropogenic threats faced by market-valued and non-market-valued species may generate additional support for grass
Authors
Clint R.V. Otto, Haochi Zheng, Torre Hovick, Max Post van der Burg, Benjamin A. Geaumont
Assessing conservation and management actions with ecosystem services better communicates conservation value to the public
Fish and wildlife populations are under unprecedented threats from changes in land use and climate. With increasing threats comes a need for an expanded constituency that can contribute to the public support and financial capital needed for habitat conservation and management. Using an ecosystem services approach can provide a framework for a more holistic accounting of conservation benefits. Our
Authors
David M. Mushet, Max Post van der Burg, Michael J. Anteau
Adaptive management framework and decision support tool for invasive annual bromes in seven Northern Great Plains National Park Service units
National Park Service (NPS) units in the northern Great Plains (NGP) were established to preserve and interpret the history of the United States, protect and showcase unusual geology and paleontology, and provide a home for vanishing large wildlife. A unifying feature among these national parks, monuments, and historic sites is northern mixed-grass prairie, which not only provides background scene
Authors
Amy Symstad, Heather Baldwin, Max Post van der Burg
Science and Products
- Science
Filter Total Items: 15
Climate Effects on Prescribed Fire Implementation and Efficacy in Northern Mixed-Grass Prairie
Prescribed burning – planned, controlled fires conducted under weather and fuel conditions designed for safety and effectiveness – is a common practice used to maintain and restore native prairies in the Northern Great Plains. However, climate change will affect the number of days in a year, and when, suitable conditions for prescribed fires occur. For instance, warmer temperatures may shift thesDeveloping a Decision Making and Climate Adaptation Framework for National Wildlife Refuge System Managers in the Midwest
Climate change presents new and compounding challenges to natural resource management. With shifting climate patterns, managers are confronted with difficult decisions on how to minimize climate impacts to habitats, infrastructure, and wildlife populations. Further, managers lack the information needed to make proactive management decisions. To address this problem, this project will develop a decClimate-Driven Connectivity Between Prairie-Pothole and Riparian Wetlands in the Upper Mississippi River Watershed: Implications for Wildlife Habitat and Water Quality
Wetland conservation in the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) is a priority for Federal, State, NGO, and Tribal land managers to support migratory bird habitat in Minnesota and Iowa. These wetlands, known as depressional wetlands, also provide ecosystem services associated with flood water storage and enhancing down-stream water quality by storing and processing nutrients. Understanding how conScience Team about Energy and Plains and Potholes Environments (STEPPE)
Brine Contamination to Plains and Potholes Environments from Energy Development in the Williston BasinDecision analysis and support
Natural resource decision makers face numerous challenges in terms of making choices to solve complex management problems. Many of these challenges stem from being overwhelmed by too many choices, uncertain or delayed outcomes, and multiple stakeholders with conflicting desires. Decision analysis (a.k.a. structured decision making) is set of qualitative and quantitative tools for structuring an...Science support for Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
Conservation practitioners have begun to realize that the many of the land management challenges of the 21st century require a broad scale problem solving approach. Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) work to implement such an approach by serving as a venue for multiple conservation partners to work together (e.g. federal and state agencies), identify common problems and support the...Potential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota
Federal resource managers in the Williston Basin need to understand how the recent expansion of oil and gas development is affecting a range of natural resources. The Bakken Federal Executive Group (BFEG), a group of representatives from over a dozen federal and tribal agencies, called for a report that synthesizes existing information about the potential impacts from energy development. The BFEG...Spatiotemporal dynamics of grassland songbird populations in response to energy development in an agricultural landscape
The recent expansion of unconventional oil and gas development in the Williston Basin of North America has raised concerns among managers about potential negative effects of such development on grassland birds. Others, however, have argued that agricultural land use in the region has had a much larger impact and that energy development may be a comparatively small stressor for grassland birds...Monitoring and modeling wetland chloride concentrations in relationship to oil and gas development
Extraction of oil and gas via unconventional methods is becoming an important aspect of energy production worldwide. Studying the effects of this development in countries where these technologies are being widely used may provide managers in other oil producing parts of the world with some insight in terms of concerns associated with development. Rapid increases in energy development in North...Developing a sampling and modeling framework to support Dakota skipper management decisions
The presence or absence of an endangered species on the landscape can have significant policy implications for public land managers and private landowners. The Dakota Skipper, a grassland dependent butterfly, was recently listed as a threatened species under The Endangered Species Act in 2014. This listing has created controversy in the states of North and South Dakota because of the potential...Enhancing Coastal Adaptation Planning at Gulf Islands National Seashore
Barrier islands are exposed to a range of natural and human-caused changes, including hurricanes, sea-level rise, and dredging. These changes have the potential to influence the ability of barrier islands to serve as a first-line of defense for the mainland during storm events. Gulf Islands National Seashore, a National Park Service unit in the northern Gulf of Mexico between Florida and MississipProtecting Cultural Resources in the Face of Climate Change
Climate change doesn’t just threaten our natural resources—it threatens our cultural resources, too. Cultural resources represent evidence of past human activity, such as archeological sites, or are of significance to a group of people traditionally associated with the resource, such as Native American ceremonial sites. Climate change is challenging the long-term persistence of many cultural res - Data
Conversion of CRP Grasslands to Cropland, Grazing Lands, or Hayland: Effects on Breeding Bird Abundances in the Northern Great Plains, 1996-2017, data release
The data set consists of bird abundance data collected in undisturbed grassland fields enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and former CRP fields that were converted to cropland, grazing land, or hayland in nine counties in four states (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota) in the northern Great Plains. The study was initiated in 1990, but data were only included in thi - Publications
Filter Total Items: 31
Converting CRP grasslands to cropland, grazing land, or hayland: Effects on breeding bird abundances in the northern Great Plains of the United States
Recent declines of grassland bird populations in North America are linked to habitat loss and fragmentation associated with agricultural practices. One tool used to conserve soil, water and wildlife habitat on agricultural fields is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the largest agricultural conservation program in the United States. Managers and conservationiAuthorsLawrence Igl, Deborah A. Buhl, Max Post van der Burg, Douglas H. JohnsonData integration reveals dynamic and systematic patterns of breeding habitat use by a threatened shorebird
Incorporating species distributions into conservation planning has traditionally involved long-term representations of habitat use where temporal variation is averaged to reveal habitats that are most suitable across time. Advances in remote sensing and analytical tools have allowed for the integration of dynamic processes into species distribution modeling. Our objective was to develop a spatioteAuthorsKristen S. Ellis, Michael J. Anteau, Garrett John Macdonald, Rose J. Swift, Megan Ring, Dustin L. Toy, Mark H. Sherfy, Max Post van der BurgLarge increases in methane emissions expected from North America’s largest wetland complex
Natural methane (CH4) emissions from aquatic ecosystems may rise because of human-induced climate warming, although the magnitude of increase is highly uncertain. Using an exceptionally large CH4 flux dataset (~19,000 chamber measurements) and remotely sensed information, we modeled plot- and landscape-scale wetland CH4 emissions from the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), North America’s largest wetlaAuthorsSheel Bansal, Max Post van der Burg, Rachel Fern, John W. Jones, Rachel Lo, Owen P. McKenna, Brian Tangen, Zhen Zhang, Robert A. GleasonResearch needs identified for potential effects of energy development activities on environmental resources of the Williston Basin, United States
Unconventional oil and gas development that uses horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing is rapidly changing the landscape and exponentially increasing oil production within the Williston Basin, especially in North Dakota and eastern Montana. The activities associated with unconventional oil and gas development are complex and wide reaching and include, in part, road and well-pad constructionAuthorsGregory C. Delzer, Max Post van der BurgPotential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota—Executive summary
Executive SummaryThe Williston Basin, which includes parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the United States and parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada, has been explored as a potential source of energy resources since the early 20th century; however, commercially viable petroleum drilling and recovery began in earnest in the 1950s. When oil prices rose in the mid-1980s, the nuAuthorsMax Post van der Burg, Kevin C. Vining, Jill D. FrankforterPotential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota—Physiography, climate, land use, and demographics
The Williston Basin has been a leading domestic oil and gas producing region. As energy demands have increased, so has energy development. A group of 13 Federal agencies and Tribal groups formed the Bakken Federal Executive Group to address common challenges associated with energy development, with a focus on understanding the cumulative environmental challenges attributed to oil and gas developmeAuthorsKevin C. Vining, Joanna N. Thamke, Max Post van der BurgPotential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota
About this volumeThe Williston Basin, which includes parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the United States, has been a leading domestic oil and gas producing area. To better understand the potential effects of energy development on environmental resources in the Williston Basin, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, and in support of the neePotential effects of energy development on environmental resources of the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota—Species of conservation concern
The ecosystems of the Williston Basin provide direct and indirect benefits to society. These benefits include carbon sequestration, flood control, nutrient rich soils for agricultural productivity, and habitat for wildlife. This chapter’s main focus is on the effects of energy development on species that occupy the ecosystems in the Williston Basin. We compiled a list of documented species of consAuthorsMax Post van der Burg, Amy J. Symstad, Lawrence D. Igl, David M. Mushet, Diane L. Larson, Glen A. Sargeant, David D. Harper, Aïda M. Farag, Brian A. Tangen, Michael J. AnteauBalancing future renewable energy infrastructure siting and associated habitat loss for migrating whooping cranes
The expansion of human infrastructure has contributed to novel risks and disturbance regimes in most ecosystems, leading to considerable uncertainty about how species will respond to altered landscapes. A recent assessment revealed that whooping cranes (Grus americana), an endangered migratory waterbird species, avoid wind-energy infrastructure during migration. However, uncertainties regarding coAuthorsKristen S. Ellis, Aaron T. Pearse, David A. Brandt, Mark T. Bidwell, Wade C. Harrell, Matthew J. Butler, Max Post van der BurgGrassland conservation supports migratory birds and produces economic benefits for the commercial beekeeping industry in the U.S. Great Plains
Although declines in grassland birds have been documented, national initiatives to conserve grasslands and their biota have fallen short in part because the non-market values of natural ecosystems and species are often not recognized in political decision making. Identifying shared, anthropogenic threats faced by market-valued and non-market-valued species may generate additional support for grassAuthorsClint R.V. Otto, Haochi Zheng, Torre Hovick, Max Post van der Burg, Benjamin A. GeaumontAssessing conservation and management actions with ecosystem services better communicates conservation value to the public
Fish and wildlife populations are under unprecedented threats from changes in land use and climate. With increasing threats comes a need for an expanded constituency that can contribute to the public support and financial capital needed for habitat conservation and management. Using an ecosystem services approach can provide a framework for a more holistic accounting of conservation benefits. OurAuthorsDavid M. Mushet, Max Post van der Burg, Michael J. AnteauAdaptive management framework and decision support tool for invasive annual bromes in seven Northern Great Plains National Park Service units
National Park Service (NPS) units in the northern Great Plains (NGP) were established to preserve and interpret the history of the United States, protect and showcase unusual geology and paleontology, and provide a home for vanishing large wildlife. A unifying feature among these national parks, monuments, and historic sites is northern mixed-grass prairie, which not only provides background sceneAuthorsAmy Symstad, Heather Baldwin, Max Post van der Burg - News