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Research about Great Plains

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including Great Plains.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS2025

A network of refugia: Whooping Crane drought response informs international habitat conservation goals

Whooping Cranes land in a palustrine-emergent wetland amid row crop agriculture near Atkinson, Nebraska, during spring migration in April of 2020 (photo by M. L. Forsberg). From 2023 to 2024, the U.S. and Canada updated conservation plans for the Whooping Crane through international workshops. These forthcoming documents will reflect shared goals for wetland conservation aimed at boosting the species' resilience to climate change and habitat loss, which were informed by applied research regarding drought impacts on migrating Whooping Cranes. The active protection and management of hydrologically diverse wetland complexes can create climate refugia that help ensure the integrity of Whooping Crane migration through the Central Flyway into the foreseeable future.

Great Plains↗
USGS2025

Patterns of water-extractable soil organic matter in the US Great Plains: Insights from the Haas Soil Archive

Novel approaches that are fast and sensitive are needed to evaluate soil change and integrate soil ecosystem properties. Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) extracted from soil with water are associated with plant nutrients and microbial activity but information about change over time in the US Great Plains is sparse. We used cool (20°C) and hot (80°C) water extracts from historic (1947) and contemporary (2018) soil samples collected at Moccasin, MT; Akron, CO; and Big Spring, TX; to examine changes to labile C and N and optical properties after 71 years of dryland cropping. Concentrations of C and N extracted with cool water decreased between 1947 and 2018 in surface (0–15.2 cm) samples from Moccasin, by 52% and 35%, and Big Spring, by 37% and 32%, but remained unchanged at Akron. Conversely, net (hot−cool) extractable C did not change at Moccasin or Big Spring but increased at Akron by 26%. Net extractable N decreased at Moccasin by 22% but did not change elsewhere. Sequential principal component analysis and stepwise discriminant analysis identified three important optical properties. Values of SUVA 254 (where SUVA 254 is the specific ultraviolet absorbance at 254 nm) in extracts did not change at Moccasin between 1947 and 2018 but increased at Akron, indicating increased aromaticity. Conversely, SUVA 254 decreased at Big Spring. Values for Sag 350–400 (where Sag 350–400 is the slope from a nonlinear fit of an exponential function to the absorption spectrum over the wavelength range from 350 to 400 nm), inversely related to extract molecular weight and aromaticity, decreased at Moccasin but not elsewhere. The proportion of recalcitrant to labile compounds, C:T (where C:T is the ratio of fluorescence intensity from Peak C [ex340/em440] to Peak T [ex275/em340]), increased in extracts from all sites but especially at Akron. Together, these methods provided insights into soil change while conserving samples.

Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, N↗
USGS2025

Reconciling scale using the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) Framework to improve management of woody encroachment in grasslands

Implementing strategies to navigate large-scale ecological transitions in grasslands is one of this century's greatest conservation challenges. In the US Great Plains, managing areas impacted by woody transitions have been reactive, short-lived, costly, and ineffective. Along with current technological innovation in rangeland monitoring, the promise of early warning science is to provide managers with sufficient time to be better prepared for novel signals of ecological change. Combining the science of early warning signals and frameworks such as the Resist – Accept – Direct (RAD) can provide land managers with guidelines to identify proactive strategies when facing ecological change. Using this approach, we found that opportunities to resist woody transitions decreased from 84 % to 60 % between 1990 and 2020 over the entire biome but remained highest in the northern and western Great Plains, which contributes to large scale conservation targets. These are key areas to prioritize resist opportunities. In contrast, 11 % of the biome exhibited early warning transition signals across all hierarchical scales by 2020, a fourfold increase since 1990. Lastly by 2020, 30 % of the biome exhibited early warning signals across multiple but not all scales. Here, efforts may be more effective when management is directed to conserve fragmented grassland legacies within a woody-dominated matrix and avoid large-scale monocultures of problematic encroaching woody species. Our multi-scale study indicates that 1) anchoring to the last remaining grassland core areas with no early warning of transitions and 2) strategically investing in these intact grasslands may provide the best results for grassland conservation.

Great Plains↗
USGS2022

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 collective impacts of other types of human infrastructure, such as power lines on migration, variable drought conditions, and continued construction of wind energy infrastructure may compromise ongoing recovery efforts for whooping cranes. Droughts are increasing in frequency and severity throughout the whooping crane migration corridor, and the impacts of drought on stopover habitat use are largely unknown. Moreover, decision-based analyses are increasingly advocated to guide recovery planning for endangered species, yet applications remain rare. Using GPS locations from 57 whooping cranes from 2010 through 2016 in the United States Great Plains, we assessed habitat selection and avoidance of potential disturbances during migration relative to drought conditions, and we used these results in an optimization analysis to select potential sites for new wind energy developments that minimize relative habitat loss for whooping cranes and maximize wind energy potential. Drought occurrence and severity varied spatially and temporally across the migration corridor during our study period. Whooping cranes rarely used areas <5 km from human settlements and wind energy infrastructure under both drought and non-drought conditions, and <2 km from power lines during non-drought conditions, with the lowest likelihood of use near wind energy infrastructure. Whooping cranes differed in their selection of wetland and cropland land cover types depending on drought or non-drought conditions. We identified scenarios for wind energy expansion across the migration corridor and in select states, which are robust to uncertain drought conditions, where future loss of highly selected stopover habitats could be minimized under a common strategy. Our approach was to estimate functional habitat loss while integrating current disturbances, potential future disturbances, and uncertainty in drought conditions. Therefore, dynamic models describing potential costs associated with risk-averse behaviors resulting from future developments can inform proactive conservation before population impacts occur.

Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dak↗
USGS2022

Leveraging rangeland monitoring data for wildlife: From concept to practice

Available rangeland data, from field-measured plots to remotely sensed landscapes, provide much needed information for mapping and modeling wildlife habitats. Better integration of wildlife habitat characteristics into rangeland monitoring schemes is needed for most rangeland wildlife species at varying spatial and temporal scales. Here, we aim to stimulate use of and inspire ideas about rangeland monitoring data in the context of wildlife habitat modeling and species conservation.

Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, N↗
USGS2020

Managing invasive plants on Great Plains grasslands: A discussion of current challenges

The Great Plains of North America encompass approximately 1,300,000 km 2 of land from Texas to Saskatchewan. The integrity of these lands is under continual assault by long-established and newly-arrived invasive plant species, which can threaten native species and diminish land values and ecological goods and services by degrading desired grassland resources. The Great Plains are a mixture of privately and publicly owned lands, which leads to a patchwork of varying management goals and strategies for controlling invasive plants. Continually updated knowledge is required for efficient and effective management of threats posed by changing environments and invasive plants. Here we discuss current challenges, contemporary management strategies, and management tools and their integration, in hopes of presenting a knowledge resource for new and experienced land managers and others involved in making decisions regarding invasive plant management in the Great Plains.

Great Plains↗
USGS2020

Energy development and production in the Great Plains: Implications and restoration opportunities

Energy is an integral part of society. The major US energy sources of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas); biofuels (ethanol); and wind are concentrated in grassland ecosystems of the Great Plains. As energy demand continues to increase, mounting pressures will be placed on North American grassland systems. In this review, we present the ecological effects of energy development and production on grassland systems. We then identify opportunities to mitigate these effects during the planning, construction, and production phases by using informed methodology and improved technology. Primary effects during energy development include small- and large-scale soil disturbance and vegetation removal as small patches of grasslands are used to host oil or gas wells, wind turbine pads, associated roadways, and pipelines or through the conversion of large grassland areas to biofuel croplands. Direct habitat loss or habitat fragmentation can affect wildlife directly through increased mortality or indirectly through reduction in habitat quantity and quality. During energy production, air and water quality can be affected through regular emissions or unplanned spills. Energy development can also affect the economy and health of local communities. During planning, energy development and production effects can be reduced by carefully considering effects on grasslands during siting and even by selecting different energy source types. During construction, effects on soil and plant systems can be minimized by eliminating weed populations before disturbance, salvaging and stockpiling topsoil for future revegetation, and harvesting native local seed for postsite restoration. During energy production operations, noise and road traffic reduction plans and atmospheric monitoring will enable more informed mitigation measures. Continued research on energy development effects and mitigation measures is necessary to establish best management practices beneficial to grassland health while providing needed energy for the United States.

Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minneso↗
USGS2019

Framework for using downscaled climate model projections in ecological experiments to quantify plant and soil responses

Soil and plant responses to climate change can be quantified in controlled settings. However, the complexity of climate projections often leads researchers to evaluate ecosystem response based on general trends, rather than specific climate model outputs. Climate projections capture spatial and temporal climate extremes and variability that are lost when using mean climate trends. In addition, application of climate projections in experimental settings remains limited. Our objective was to develop a framework to incorporate statistically downscaled climate model projections into the design of temperature and precipitation treatments for ecological experiments. To demonstrate the utility of experimental treatments derived from climate projections, we used wetlands in the Great Plains as a model ecosystem for evaluating plant and soil responses. Spatial and temporal projections were selected to capture variability and intensity of projected future conditions for exemplary purposes. To illustrate climate projection application for ecological experiments, we developed temperature and precipitation treatments based on moderate-emissions scenario climate outputs (i.e., RCP4.5–650 ppm CO 2 equivalent). Our temperature treatments captured weekly trends that represented cool, average, and warm temperature predictions, and our daily precipitation treatments mimicked various seasonal precipitation trends and extreme events projected for the late 21st century. Treatments were applied to two short-term controlled experiments evaluating (1) plant germination (temperature treatment applied in growth chamber) and (2) soil nitrogen cycling (precipitation treatment applied in greenhouse) responses to projected future conditions in the Great Plains. Our approach provides flexibility for selecting appropriate and precise climate model outputs to design experimental treatments. Using these techniques, ecologists can better incorporate variation in climate model projections for experimentally evaluating ecosystem responses to future climate conditions, reduce uncertainty in predictive ecological models, and apply predicted outcomes when making management and policy decisions.

Nebraska, Texas↗
USGS2019

Management opportunities and research priorities for Great Plains grasslands

The Great Plains Grassland Summit: Challenges and Opportunities from North to South was held April 10-11, 2018 in Denver, Colorado. The geographical focus for the summit was the entire Great Plains. The summit was designed to provide syntheses of information about key grassland topics of interest in the Great Plains; networking and learning channels for managers, researchers and stakeholders; and working sessions for sharing input and ideas about challenges and future research and management opportunities. The summit was convened to better understand Great Plains stressors and resource demands and how to manage them, and to discuss methods for improved collaboration among natural resource managers, scientists, and stakeholders. Over 200 stakeholders, who collectively were affiliated with all of the Great Plains states, attended the summit. Attendees included university researchers, government scientists, and individuals affiliated with federal and state agencies, tribes, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Plenary speakers provided syntheses of current knowledge on key topics to help stage working sessions on working lands, native plants and pollinators, native wildlife and biological diversity, invasive species, wildland and prescribed fire, energy development, and weather, water, and climate. The summit steering committee designed one suite of questions that were asked of participants in each working session. This report is a digest of the input from those who attended the seven working sessions and responded to the structured questions.

Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Misso↗
USGS2018

Drought and land-cover conditions in the Great Plains

Land–atmosphere interactions play a critical role in the Earth system, and a better understanding of these interactions could improve weather and climate models. The interaction among drought, vegetation productivity, and land cover is of particular significance. In a semiarid environment, such as the U.S. Great Plains, droughts can have a large influence on the productivity of agriculture and grasslands, with serious environmental and economic impacts. Here, we used the vegetation drought response index (VegDRI) drought indicator to investigate the response of vegetation to weather and climate for land-cover types in the Great Plains in the United States from 1989 to 2012. We found that analysis that focused on land-cover types within ecoregion divisions provided substantially more and land-cover-based detail on the timing and intensity of drought than did summarizing across the entire Great Plains region. In the northern Great Plains, VegDRI measured more frequent drought impacts on vegetation in the western ecoregions than in the eastern ecoregions. Across the ecoregions of the Great Plains, drought impacts on vegetation were more commonly found in grassland than in cropland. For example, in the “Northwestern Great Plains” ecoregion (which encompasses areas of Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska), grassland and nonirrigated cropland were observed in VegDRI to have historical fractional drought coverages in the growing season of 17% and 11%, respectively.

Great Plains↗
USGS2018

The perpetual state of emergency that sacrifices protected areas in a changing climate

A modern challenge for conservation biology is to assess the consequences of policies that adhere to assumptions of stationarity (e.g. historic norms) in an era of global environmental change. Such policies may result in unexpected and surprising levels of mitigation given future climate change trajectories, especially as agriculture looks to protected areas to buffer against production losses during periods of environmental extremes. Here, we conduct a scenario impact assessment to determine the potential impact of climate change scenarios on the rates at which lands enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands are authorized for emergency biomass removal. Grassland biomass on CRP lands is authorized for ‘emergency’ harvesting for agricultural use when precipitation for the last four months falls below 40 percent of the normal, or ‘historical’ mean, precipitation for that four-month period. We develop and analyze scenarios under the condition that policy will continue to operate under assumptions of stationarity, thereby authorizing emergency biomass harvesting solely as a function of precipitation departure from historic norms. Model projections show the historical likelihood of authorizing emergency biomass harvesting in any given year in the northern Great Plains was 33.28 ± 0.96%, according to long-term weather records. Emergency biomass harvesting became the norm (>50% of years) in the scenario reflecting continued increases in emissions and a decrease in growing season precipitation, and areas in the Great Plains with higher historical mean annual rainfall were disproportionately affected and experienced a greater increase in emergency biomass removal. Emergency biomass harvesting decreased only in the scenario reflecting rapid reductions in emissions. Our scenario impact analysis indicates that biomass from lands enrolled in the CRP will be used primarily as a buffer for agriculture in an era of climatic change, unless policy guidelines are adapted or climate change projections significantly depart from the current consensus.

Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyo↗
USGS2018

Mapping cropland waterway buffers for switchgrass development in the eastern Great Plains, USA

Switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum L.), a highly productive perennial grass, has been recommended as one potential source for cellulosic biofuel feedstocks. Previous studies indicate that planting perennial grasses (e.g., switchgrass) in high‐topographic‐relief cropland waterway buffers can improve local environmental conditions and sustainability. The main advantages of this land management practice include (i) reducing soil erosion and improving water quality because switchgrass requires less tillage, fertilizers, and pesticides; and (ii) improving regional ecosystem services (e.g., improving water infiltration, minimizing drought and flood impacts on production, and serving as carbon sinks). In this study, we mapped high‐topographic‐relief cropland waterway buffers with high switchgrass productivity potential that may be suitable for switchgrass development in the eastern Great Plains (EGP). The US Geological Survey (USGS) Compound Topographic Index map, National Land Cover Database 2011, USGS irrigation map, and a switchgrass biomass productivity map derived from a previous study were used to identify the switchgrass potential areas. Results show that about 16 342 km 2 ( c . 1.3% of the total study area) of cropland waterway buffers in the EGP are potentially suitable for switchgrass development. The total annual estimated switchgrass biomass production for these suitable areas is approximately 15 million metric tons. Results from this study provide useful information on EGP areas with good cellulosic switchgrass biomass production potential and synergistic substantial potential for improvement of ecosystem services.

Great Plains↗
USGS2017

Groundwater declines are linked to changes in Great Plains stream fish assemblages

Groundwater pumping for agriculture is a major driver causing declines of global freshwater ecosystems, yet the ecological consequences for stream fish assemblages are rarely quantified. We combined retrospective (1950–2010) and prospective (2011–2060) modeling approaches within a multiscale framework to predict change in Great Plains stream fish assemblages associated with groundwater pumping from the United States High Plains Aquifer. We modeled the relationship between the length of stream receiving water from the High Plains Aquifer and the occurrence of fishes characteristic of small and large streams in the western Great Plains at a regional scale and for six subwatersheds nested within the region. Water development at the regional scale was associated with construction of 154 barriers that fragment stream habitats, increased depth to groundwater and loss of 558 km of stream, and transformation of fish assemblage structure from dominance by large-stream to small-stream fishes. Scaling down to subwatersheds revealed consistent transformations in fish assemblage structure among western subwatersheds with increasing depths to groundwater. Although transformations occurred in the absence of barriers, barriers along mainstem rivers isolate depauperate western fish assemblages from relatively intact eastern fish assemblages. Projections to 2060 indicate loss of an additional 286 km of stream across the region, as well as continued replacement of large-stream fishes by small-stream fishes where groundwater pumping has increased depth to groundwater. Our work illustrates the shrinking of streams and homogenization of Great Plains stream fish assemblages related to groundwater pumping, and we predict similar transformations worldwide where local and regional aquifer depletions occur.

Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska↗
USGS2016

Grassland and cropland net ecosystem production of the U.S. Great Plains: Regression tree model development and comparative analysis

This paper presents the methodology and results of two ecological-based net ecosystem production (NEP) regression tree models capable of up scaling measurements made at various flux tower sites throughout the U.S. Great Plains. Separate grassland and cropland NEP regression tree models were trained using various remote sensing data and other biogeophysical data, along with 15 flux towers contributing to the grassland model and 15 flux towers for the cropland model. The models yielded weekly mean daily grassland and cropland NEP maps of the U.S. Great Plains at 250 m resolution for 2000–2008. The grassland and cropland NEP maps were spatially summarized and statistically compared. The results of this study indicate that grassland and cropland ecosystems generally performed as weak net carbon (C) sinks, absorbing more C from the atmosphere than they released from 2000 to 2008. Grasslands demonstrated higher carbon sink potential (139 g C·m −2 ·year −1 ) than non-irrigated croplands. A closer look into the weekly time series reveals the C fluctuation through time and space for each land cover type.

Great Plains↗
USGS2015

Whooping crane stopover site use intensity within the Great Plains

Whooping cranes ( Grus americana ) of the Aransas-Wood Buffalo population migrate twice each year through the Great Plains in North America. Recovery activities for this endangered species include providing adequate places to stop and rest during migration, which are generally referred to as stopover sites. To assist in recovery efforts, initial estimates of stopover site use intensity are presented, which provide opportunity to identify areas across the migration range used more intensively by whooping cranes. We used location data acquired from 58 unique individuals fitted with platform transmitting terminals that collected global position system locations. Radio-tagged birds provided 2,158 stopover sites over 10 migrations and 5 years (2010&ndash;14). Using a grid-based approach, we identified 1,095 20-square-kilometer grid cells that contained stopover sites. We categorized occupied grid cells based on density of stopover sites and the amount of time cranes spent in the area. This assessment resulted in four categories of stopover site use: unoccupied, low intensity, core intensity, and extended-use core intensity. Although provisional, this evaluation of stopover site use intensity offers the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and partners a tool to identify landscapes that may be of greater conservation significance to migrating whooping cranes. Initially, the tool will be used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other interested parties in evaluating the Great Plains Wind Energy Habitat Conservation Plan.

Alberta, Iowa, Kansas, Manitoba, Minnesota, Missou↗
USGS2015

Status and trends of land change in the Great Plains of the United States--1973 to 2000

Preface U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Professional Paper 1794&ndash;B is the second in a four-volume series on the status and trends of the Nation&rsquo;s land use and land cover, providing an assessment of the rates and causes of land-use and land-cover change in the Great Plains of the United States between 1973 and 2000. Volumes A, C, and D provide similar analyses for the Western United States, the Midwest&ndash;South Central United States, and the Eastern United States, respectively. The assessments of land-use and land-cover trends are conducted on an ecoregion-by-ecoregion basis, and each ecoregion assessment is guided by a nationally consistent study design that includes mapping, statistical methods, field studies, and analysis. Individual assessments provide a picture of the characteristics of land change occurring in a given ecoregion; in combination, they provide a framework for understanding the complex national mosaic of change and also the causes and consequences of change. Thus, each volume in this series provides a regional assessment of how (and how fast) land use and land cover are changing, and why. The four volumes together form the first comprehensive picture of land change across the Nation. Geographic understanding of land-use and land-cover change is directly relevant to a wide variety of stakeholders, including land and resource managers, policymakers, and scientists. The chapters in this volume present brief summaries of the patterns and rates of land change observed in each ecoregion in the Great Plains of the United States, together with field photographs, statistics, and comparisons with other assessments. In addition, a synthesis chapter summarizes the scope of land change observed across the entire Great Plains of the United States. The studies provide a way of integrating information across the landscape, and they form a critical component in the efforts to understand how land use and land cover affect important issues such as the provision of ecological goods and services and also the determination of risks to, and vulnerabilities of, human communities. Results from this project also are published in peer-reviewed journals, and they are further used to produce maps of change and other tools for land management, as well as to provide inputs for carbon-cycle modeling and other climate change research. This report is only one of the products produced by USGS on land-use and land-cover change in the United States. Other reports and land-cover statistics are available online at http://landcovertrends.usgs.gov .

Great Plains↗