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At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources
USGS2022

Opportunities to improve alignment with the FAIR Principles for U.S. Geological Survey data

In 2016, an interdisciplinary, international group of 53 scientists introduced a framework named “the FAIR Principles” for addressing 21st century scientific data challenges. The FAIR Principles are increasingly used as a guide for producing digital scientific products that are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), especially to enable use of such products in automated systems. Data aligned with the FAIR Principles can increase the efficiency of science integration capabilities such as those envisioned for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Monitoring, Analyses, and Projections (EarthMAP) initiative. The FAIR Principles clearly define the characteristics of reusable scientific products, but it is less clear how to facilitate consistency in achieving these characteristics across the Bureau. USGS data are produced by local research projects distributed over more than 100 centers in 7 regions. After data are approved for release, they could be managed in numerous repositories and online data systems. The diversity of USGS data is illustrated by the topical range of the USGS mission areas: Core Science Systems, Ecosystems, Energy and Minerals, Natural Hazards, and Water Resources. In the USGS context, realizing the EarthMAP vision for automated, predictive, integrated science that provides timely and actionable results involves providing knowledge and support services and developing the skills, infrastructure, and culture to enable Bureau-wide implementation of the FAIR Principles. In 2019, the USGS Community for Data Integration funded a project to convene a broadly representative workshop and produce recommendations to enable consistency with the FAIR Principles across the USGS. The workshop, held in Fort Collins, Colorado, in September 2019, brought together 28 participants for 3 days to engage with the FAIR Principles, analyze USGS use cases, and discuss the roles of data producers and managers, data storage and catalogs, value-added services, and policy makers in implementing the FAIR Principles. Workshop participants agreed that scientific reproducibility requires the extension of the FAIR Principles beyond measured data to include physical samples, research methods, software, and tools at the USGS. Workshop discussions focused on how the USGS can implement the FAIR Principles by supporting research teams in creating data, metadata, and other scientific products and also by supporting enterprise systems that maintain and leverage the products’ consistency with the FAIR Principles. The resulting FAIR roadmap of recommendations describes nine proposed interdependent strategies that could be achieved by coordinated actions taken by different parts of the USGS. A proposed early action would be the creation of a coordinating council that includes representatives from the groups engaged in activities consistent with better alignment with the FAIR Principles. The nine proposed strategies, which are presented in more detail in this roadmap report, focus on enabling improvements to individual data products, providing infrastructure, and structuring administrative activities to support an organizational culture that values the FAIR Principles.

Open-File Report↗
USGS2024

Drought prediction and water availability: A report on the 2022 ​​USGS-NIDIS National Listening Session Series

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and NOAA’s National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) conducted a series of four Listening Sessions in 2022 – each with a different application or topical focus – to seek input on priorities and needs related to predicting water availability changes under drought conditions at national and regional scales. This input was gathered to help inform the USGS Drought Program, regional and national drought efforts at NIDIS, and other national drought efforts. The series started with a February 2022 kick-off that introduced the series of Listening Sessions being held from March through September 2022. This kickoff also provided an overview of the USGS Drought Program’s work to characterize hydrological (e.g., streamflow and groundwater) drought, drought variability, drivers, and trends over the past century. Participants in these Listening Sessions included diverse stakeholder representation and perspectives. The first of the four Listening Sessions focused on streamflow (March 3, 2022), and included a short introduction to the USGS national streamflow drought research, the properties of a national drought prediction system, as well as presentations by other agencies on different drought prediction and forecasting efforts. The second session focused on groundwater (May 5, 2022), and included presentations on groundwater drought, sustainable groundwater management, and improving our understanding of soil moisture, groundwater, and surface water drought. The third session focused on water use (July 14, 2022), and included a discussion of the different drought types, as well as an introduction to several key projects, including the USGS Upper Colorado River Basin Study, the Ogallala Data Directory project, and a multi-agency drought prediction partnership in Oklahoma. The fourth and final Listening Session focused on water availability prediction for ecosystems (September 8, 2022), and included presentations on the development of a national capacity for eco-hydrological and drought science, building climate resilience, and actionable ecodrought resources.

Report↗
USGS2020

Comparing environmental flow implementation options with structured decision making: Case study from the Willamette River, Oregon

Many frameworks have been used to identify environmental flows for sustaining river ecosystems or specific taxa in the face of widespread flow alteration for human use. However, these methods mostly focus on identifying suitable flows and largely ignore the important links between management actions, resulting flows, flow variability, and ecosystem or social responses. Structured decision making (SDM) could assist the comparison and implementation of environmental flows by providing a framework to compare effects of flow management actions on objectives via environmental flow science. We describe the SDM process and illustrate its application using a case study focused on comparing environmental flow scenarios for the mainstem Willamette River, Oregon, USA. In a short timeframe, SDM was successfully applied to identify management objectives, develop empirical and expert opinion based models predicting ecological responses, and compare scenarios while accounting for uncertainty and partial controllability. We found that no flow scenario was clearly preferred based on available knowledge, largely because river flows could only be partially controlled through available dam operations. Participants agreed that the SDM process was useful and that an additional iteration focused on refining predictive models and incorporating additional objectives could help better inform dam release decisions for the entire basin. In our view, SDM can provide managers with more realistic comparisons of environmental flows by accounting for partial controllability and uncertainty, which may result in greater implementation of available flow management actions.

Oregon↗
USGS2011

Natural resource mitigation, adaptation and research needs related to climate change in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert

This report synthesizes the knowledge, opinions, and concerns of many Federal and State land managers, scientists, stakeholders, and partners from a workshop, held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on April 20-22, 2010. Land managers, research scientists, and resource specialists identified common concerns regarding the potential effects of climate change on public lands and natural resources in the Great Basin and Mojave Desert and developed recommendations for mitigation, adaptation, and research needs. Water and, conversely, the effects of drought emerged as a common theme in all breakout sessions on terrestrial and aquatic species at risk, managing across boundaries, monitoring, and ecosystem services. Climate change models for the southwestern deserts predict general warming and drying with increasing precipitation variability year to year. Scientists noted that under these changing conditions the past may no longer be a guide to the future in which managers envision increasing conflicts between human water uses and sustaining ecosystems. Increasing environmental stress also is expected as a consequence of shifting ecosystem boundaries and species distributions, expansion of non-native species, and decoupling of biotic mutualisms, leading to increasingly unstable biologic communities. Managers uniformly expressed a desire to work across management and agency boundaries at a landscape scale but conceded that conflicting agency missions and budgetary constraints often impede collaboration. More and better science is needed to cope with the effects of climate change but, perhaps even more important is the application of science to management issues using the methods of adaptive management based on long-term monitoring to assess the merits of management actions. Access to data is essential for science-based land management. Basic inventories, spatial databases, baseline condition assessments, data quality assurance, and data sharing were identified as top information priorities by all participants at this workshop. Optimizing the utility of ecosystem monitoring data will require standardizing monitoring protocols across agencies. Better communication among researchers and managers and cooperation through partnerships to manage resources across boundaries were emphasized as necessary for adapting to changing climatic conditions. However, even these strategies may be insufficient unless policy mandates, agency missions, and funding are coordinated at a high level.

Scientific Investigations Report↗
USGS2019

Integration of social and ecological sciences for natural resource decision making: Challenges and opportunities

The last 25 years have witnessed growing recognition that natural resource management decisions depend as much on understanding humans and their social interactions as on understanding the interactions between non-human organisms and their environment. Decision science provides a framework for integrating ecological and social factors into a decision, but challenges to integration remain. The decision-analytic framework elicits values and preferences to help articulate objectives, and then evaluates the outcomes of alternative management actions to achieve these objectives. Integrating social science into these steps can be hindered by failing to include social scientists as more than stakeholder-process facilitators, assuming that specific decision-analytic skills are commonplace for social scientists, misperceptions of social data as inherently qualitative, timescale mismatches for iterating through decision analysis and collecting relevant social data, difficulties in predicting human behavior, and failures of institutions to recognize the importance of this integration. We engage these challenges, and suggest solutions to them, helping move forward the integration of social and biological/ecological knowledge and considerations in decision-making.

Environmental Management↗
USGS2021

How to increase the supply of native seed to improve restoration success: The US native seed development process

With the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, restoration of damaged ecosystems is turning into a global movement. Restoration actions that are not based on science and an understanding of ecosystem function can thwart desired restoration outcomes at best and cause further damage to ecosystems at worst. Restoration often includes revegetation using seed. Where we source seed for restoration can make a difference for species establishment, restoration outcomes, and recovery of ecosystem function. However, sourcing seeds of native species, let alone genetically appropriate seed, is not currently possible for many restoration projects. The process of increasing and sourcing suitable seed for restoration includes many steps that need to be addressed typically years before a restoration project is initiated. These steps of seed collection, evaluation and development, field establishment, production, certification and procurement, storage, and finally restoration, need to be considered ideally at a scale larger than individual restoration projects and with research conducted in each step. We describe these steps as implemented in the United States, the challenges therein, and provide suggestions and examples of how groups can make efficient and effective progress toward getting the right seed in the right place at the right time.

Restoration Ecology↗
USGS2022

Long-term ocean observing for international capacity development around tsunami early warning

The 2004 magnitude (M) 9.1 Sumatra-Andaman Islands earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered the deadliest tsunami ever, killing more than 230,000 people. In response, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established three additional Intergovernmental Coordination Groups (ICGs) for the Tsunami and Other Coastal Hazards Early Warning System: for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (ICG/CARIBE-EWS), for the Indian Ocean, and for the Northeastern Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Connected Seas. Along with the ICG for the Pacific Ocean, which was established in 1965, one of the goals of the new ICGs was to improve earthquake and tsunami monitoring and early warning. This need was further demonstrated by the 2011 Great East Japan (Tōhoku-oki) earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 20,000 people, and other destructive tsunamis that occurred in the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Chile, Indonesia, and Peru. In response to the call to action by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030), as well as the desired safe ocean outcome (von Hillebrandt-Andrade et al., 2021), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO approved the Ocean Decade Tsunami Programme in June 2021. One of its goals is to develop the capability to issue actionable alerts for tsunamis from all sources with minimum uncertainty within 10 minutes (Angove et al., 2019). While laudable, this goal presents complexities. Currently, warning depends on quick detection as well as the location and initial magnitude estimates of an earthquake that may generate a tsunami. Other factors that affect tsunamis, such as the faulting mechanism (how the faults slide past each other) and areal extent of the earthquake, currently take at least 20–30 minutes to forecast and are still subject to large uncertainties. Hence, agencies charged with tsunami early warning need to broadcast public alerts within minutes after an earthquake occurs but may struggle to meet this 10-minute goal without further technological advances, some of which are outlined in this article. To reduce loss of life through adequate tsunami warning requires global ocean-based seismic, sea level, and geodetic initiatives to detect high-impact earthquakes and tsunamis, combined with sufficient communication and education so that people know how to respond when they receive alerts and warnings. The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction defines an early warning system as “a set of capacities needed to generate and disseminate timely and meaningful warning information to enable individuals, communities, and organizations threatened by a hazard to prepare and to act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce the possibility of harm or loss” (UNISDR, 2012). In short, a successful early warning system requires technology coupled with human factors (Kelman and Glantz, 2014). In this article, we explore case studies from Japan and Canada, where scientists are leading the way in incorporating ocean observing capabilities in their early warning systems. We also explore advancements and challenges in the Caribbean, an area with a complex tectonic environment that would benefit greatly from increased global ocean observing capabilities. We also explore physical and social science interventions necessary to reduce loss of life.

Oceanography↗
USGS2012

Expert knowledge as a foundation for the management of secretive species and their habitat

In this chapter, we share lessons learned during the elicitation and application of expert knowledge in the form of a belief network model for the habitat of a waterbird, the King Rail ( Rallus elegans ). A belief network is a statistical framework used to graphically represent and evaluate hypothesized cause and effect relationships among variables. Our model was a pilot project to explore the value of such a model as a tool to help the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) conserve species that lack sufficient empirical data to guide management decisions. Many factors limit the availability of empirical data that can support landscape-scale conservation planning. Globally, most species simply have not yet been subject to empirical study (Wilson 2000). Even for well-studied species, data are often restricted to specific geographic extents, to particular seasons, or to specific segments of a species’ life history. The USFWS mandates that the agency’s conservation actions (1) be coordinated across regional landscapes, (2) be founded on the best available science (with testable assumptions), and (3) support adaptive management through monitoring and assessment of action outcomes. Given limits on the available data, the concept of “best available science” in the context of conservation planning generally includes a mix of empirical data and expert knowledge (Sullivan et al. 2006).

Book chapter↗
USGS2023

Connecting research and practice to enhance the evolutionary potential of species under climate change

Resource managers have rarely accounted for evolutionary dynamics in the design or implementation of climate change adaptation strategies. We brought the research and management communities together to identify challenges and opportunities for applying evidence from evolutionary science to support on-the-ground actions intended to enhance species' evolutionary potential. We amalgamated input from natural-resource practitioners and interdisciplinary scientists to identify information needs, current knowledge that can fill those needs, and future avenues for research. Three focal areas that can guide engagement include: (1) recognizing when to act, (2) understanding the feasibility of assessing evolutionary potential, and (3) identifying best management practices. Although researchers commonly propose using molecular methods to estimate genetic diversity and gene flow as key indicators of evolutionary potential, we offer guidance on several additional attributes (and their proxies) that may also guide decision-making, particularly in the absence of genetic data. Finally, we outline existing decision-making frameworks that can help managers compare alternative strategies for supporting evolutionary potential, with the goal of increasing the effective use of evolutionary information, particularly for species of conservation concern. We caution, however, that arguing over nuance can generate confusion; instead, dedicating increased focus on a decision-relevant evidence base may better lend itself to climate adaptation actions.

Conservation Science and Practice↗
USGS2019

Adaptive Management and Monitoring

This is a chapter in a technical report that is the second of two works describing longer-term actions to implement policies and strategies for preventing and suppressing rangeland fire and restoring rangeland landscapes affected by fire in the Western United States. The first part, Chambers et al 2017, "Science Framework for conservation and restoration of the sagebrush biome: Linking the Department of the Interior’s Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy to long-term strategic conservation actions. Part 1. Science basis and applications" provides information and decision support tools. This part 2 describes application and use of part 1 to resource managers.

Report↗
USGS2014

Great Lakes restoration success through science: U.S. Geological Survey accomplishments 2010 through 2013

The Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario) are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth and serve as an important source of drinking water, transportation, power, and recreational opportunities for the United States and Canada. They also support an abundant commercial and recreational fishery, are crucial for agriculture, and are essential to the economic vitality of the region. The Great Lakes support a wealth of biological diversity, including over 200 globally rare plants and animals and more than 40 species that are found nowhere else in the world. However, more than a century of environmental degradation has taken a substantial toll on the Great Lakes. To stimulate and promote the goal of a healthy Great Lakes region, President Obama and Congress created the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) in 2009. The GLRI is an interagency collaboration that seeks to address the most significant environmental problems in the Great Lakes ecosystem. The GLRI is composed of five focus areas that address these issues: Cleaning up toxic substances and Areas of Concern, Preventing and controlling invasive species, Promoting nearshore health, Protecting and restoring habitat and wildlife, Tracking progress and working with partners. As of August 2013, the GLRI had funded more than 1,500 projects and programs of the highest priority to meet immediate cleanup, restoration, and protection needs. These projects use scientific analyses as the basis for identifying the restoration needs and priorities for the GLRI. Results from the science, monitoring, and other on-the-ground actions by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) provide the scientific information needed to help guide the Great Lakes restoration efforts. This document highlights a selection of USGS projects for each of the five focus areas through 2013, demonstrating the importance of science for restoration success. Additional information for these and other USGS projects that are important for Great Lakes restoration is available at http://cida.usgs.gov/glri/glri-catalog/ .

Great Lakes↗
USGS2024

Natural resource management confronts the growing scale and severity of ecosystem responses to drought and wildfire

Intensification of drought and wildfire associated with climate change has triggered widespread ecosystem stress and transformation. Natural resource managers are on the frontline of these changes, yet their perspectives on whether management actions match the scale and align with the severity of ecosystem responses to improve outcomes are not well understood. To provide new insight, a new conceptual framework that linked scale and severity was tested by conducting interviews and surveys of staff associated with natural resource management on the Colorado Plateau in the southwestern United States (U.S.), which contains the highest concentration of public lands in the contiguous U.S. Results indicate that drought was experienced more frequently than wildfire, and both stressors were happening at large scales and moderate to abrupt timeframes with a high degree of impact to ecosystems. Ecosystem responses were perceived to increase in severity under future climate change with limited capacity to recover, and a majority of resource managers expressed that they had low control to shape these trajectories. Although management strategies to address drought and wildfire were well recognized, adaptation-specific actions remained unclear or had limited financial and staffing resources to support implementation. Additional effort could help close a growing misalignment between management actions and natural resource responses, including effective science communication, refined information tailored to meet adaptation goals at management-relevant spatiotemporal scales, and opportunities for adaptive management that can proactively address intensification of drought and wildfire.

Ecology and Society↗
USGS2016

Northwest Boreal Landscape Conservation Cooperative strategic plan 2015 - 2025

The Northwest Boreal Landscape Conservation Cooperative (NWB LCC) is a voluntary, diverse, self-directed management-science partnership, informing and promoting integrated science, sustainable natural and cultural resource management, and conservation to address impacts of climate change and other stressors within and across ecosystems. The NWB LCC area includes parts of Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and British Columbia. Our partnership reflects both the broad geographic scope and an extensive array of active and engaged participants including resource management organizations, government representatives, policy makers, Tribes and First Nations, industry leaders, researchers, non-governmental organizations, and research/education institutions. Bringing together diverse partners will help assure the northwest boreal is a functioning, sustainable landscape. We live in an era of profound conservation challenges, including the loss and fragmentation of habitats, genetic isolation, invasive species, and unnatural wildfire. The effects of rapidly changing climate are already evident on the landscape. In these circumstances, it is imperative that natural resource management agencies, science providers, Tribes, First Nations, conservation organizations, and other stakeholders work together to understand the drivers and impacts of landscape change and to determine how best to address those challenges. Further, it is essential that the public and communities receive clear communication about the vision and activities of the NWB LCC. Open public access to NWB LCC activities and products will promote acceptance and support of the science that guides potential changes in management action and conservation strategy. This strategic plan provides a great opportunity for the NWB LCC to share our approach and intentions to the LCC members, collaborators, communities, and the public at large.

Report↗
USGS2022

Contaminants of emerging concern in the Great Lakes: Science to inform management practices for protecting the health and integrity of wildlife populations from adverse effects: GLRI action plan I, focus area 1, goal 5

Executive Summary: Under Action Plan I (2010-2014) of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI), Federal and Academic partners began an investigation of the presence and distribution of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) in the Great Lakes and potential impacts on fish and wildlife. The term CECs is applied to a broad range of chemicals that are currently in use but for which we currently lack good understanding of whether fish, wildlife, or humans are being exposed and/or whether negative health or environmental effects are expected if exposure occurs. Pharmaceuticals, personal care products, flame retardants, many current use pesticides, and poly- and perfluorinated chemicals are some well-known groups of CECs, but there is no definitive or comprehensive list that can be used to support the management of CECs to reduce impacts on the Great Lakes ecosystem. Four overarching goals were identified for this collaborative investigation: 1. Evaluate the sources, occurrence, and distribution of CECs across the Great Lakes Basin. 2. Examine associations between the distribution of CECs and land-use patterns. 3. Review both scientific literature and field-generated data to determine the potential for CECs to cause adverse effects on Great Lakes fish and wildlife populations. 4. Develop efficient strategies to survey and/or monitor for threats that CECs may pose in order to take effective management actions before those threats evolve into large scale impacts on Great Lakes ecosystems or the services they provide. Achievement of these goals ensures progress towards Focus Area 1: Toxic Substances and Areas of Concern from GLRI Action Plan I, Goal 5: “ The health and integrity of wildlife populations and habitat are protected from adverse chemical and biological effects associated with the presence of toxic substances in the Great Lakes Basin ”. This large-scale research effort was comprised of individual and collaborative projects from multiple federal agencies and academic institutions, involving over 85 investigators, and overseen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 5, Great Lakes National Program Office. Partners include the United States Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Saint Cloud State University, the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Key findings: 1. Contaminants of emerging concern were found throughout the monitored Great Lakes tributaries, but types and concentrations vary in association with regional land use. CECs were detected in nearly all samples collected. The type and concentration of the specific contaminants detected varied considerably among field sites and in association with land use type, such as urban, agricultural, wetland, 2 or forest. Contaminants were detected in the water column, sediment, and tissues of all species surveyed in the current work (mussels, aquatic insects, fish, and insect-eating birds). 2. There were over 20 contaminants for which CEC concentrations approached or exceeded those reported to cause toxicity in laboratory experiments. This was based on detection in water, sediments and or biota at one or more field sites. These contaminants represent compounds that warrant further investigation and monitoring with respect to potential impacts in certain areas of the Great Lakes basin. Based on the present investigation, compounds of greatest concern include: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, associated with oil-based products and combustion of organic matter; atrazine, an herbicide; dichlorvos, an insecticide; and ibuprofen and venlafaxine, both pharmaceuticals. 3. Results suggest that mixtures of CECs presently found in most Great Lakes tributary locations surveyed may elicit subtle biological effects, but likely are not, alone, causing obvious detriment to current communities of fish and wildlife. CECs detected in the Great Lakes were associated with subtle biological effects like changes in gene expression, altered circulating glucose, etc. in both wild-caught and laboratory-reared organisms. These effects were generally not indicative of reproductive failure or mortality. However, the effects may have more serious implications when combined with other sources of stress like habitat degradation, changing climate conditions, and competition with invasive species. Due to limited historical data, it is unknown whether severe CEC-related impacts have already affected aquatic communities in waterbodies that have received long-term inputs of these contaminants. Likewise, under Action Plan I, biological effects were not necessarily evaluated at the sites where CEC concentrations exceeding laboratory toxicity thresholds were detected. As a result, strategic, ongoing surveillance and monitoring of CECs is warranted. This collaborative investigation resulted in new tools, approaches, and data that can be used to inform and support the management of CECs to reduce their impacts on Great Lakes natural resources. The following products of this research effort are available through https://communities.geoplatform.gov/glri/ or by contacting the investigators (see technical chapters found in Appendices A-F): 1. Database of CEC occurrence and concentrations in US tributary streams. The database includes CEC detections in water, sediment, and fish and wildlife tissues, and represents the most comprehensive survey of CECs in the Great Lakes Region. 2. Synopses of results and key findings. Integrated summaries of results, conclusions, and management implications of the CEC research are available through reports, topical fact sheets, and presentations. 3. Technical publications: This collaborative research effort has resulted in over 50 peer-reviewed publications, agency reports, and data releases that can be of use to resource managers, the scientific community, and members of the public. 4. Innovative tools. Innovative monitoring devices, sampling equipment, conceptual frameworks, and software applications were developed over the course of this 3 research. These tools are transferable to stakeholders via internet accessibility or via specifications, instructions, and demonstration detailed in technical publications. Hypotheses to guide CECs research under Action Plan II. Findings from 2010-2014 were used to guide further research in 2015-2018 for basin-wide surveillance of CECs and for sites warranting further study of potential biological impacts of CECs. Additional surveillance included both evaluation of additional classes of contaminants and expanded lists for chemical classes shown to be of greatest concern. Mixtures of some of the most frequently detected contaminants were also tested in laboratory studies to understand whether long term exposures to multiple contaminants may result in effects not evident from uncontrolled, short-term field experiments.

Great Lakes↗
USGS2026

Successes and opportunities for solutions-oriented conservation research: Lessons learned from avian science

Conservation science struggles with an ongoing divide between research and action. Given its history of broad public engagement and multi-scale management coordination, avian conservation typifies many of the challenges, successes, and opportunities across the broader field of conservation and is rich with examples that may guide solutions-oriented conservation science. In semi-structured focus groups composed of bird conservation scientists and practitioners from various backgrounds, we discussed the definition, characteristics, and examples of solutions-oriented conservation science. Our discussions highlighted several examples where successful application of avian conservation science led to change in programs, policy, regulations, and social systems, including several with co-benefits for local communities. These successes were characterized by communication, collaboration, and co-development with local communities, decision-makers, practitioners, and Indigenous communities. We identified remaining opportunities for improvement, including aligning incentives and priorities between research and practice, working across disciplines to mobilize solutions, dismantling barriers to inclusion, and emphasizing the importance of relationship-building in conservation science. We outline suggestions that researchers can use to incorporate these lessons from solutions-oriented avian conservation science into training and mentoring programs.

Conservation Science and Practice↗
USGS2014

The importance of context dependency for understanding the effects of low flow events on fish

The natural hydrology of streams and rivers has been extensively altered by dam construction, water diversion, and climate change. An increased frequency of low-flow events will affect fish by changing habitat availability, resource availability, and reproductive cues. I reviewed the literature to characterize the approaches taken to assess low-flow events and fish, the main effects of low-flow events on fish, and the associated mechanistic drivers. Most studies are focused on temperate streams and are comparative in nature. Decreased stream flow is associated with decreased survival, growth, and abundance of fish populations and shifts in community composition, but effects are variable. This variability in effects is probably caused by context dependence. I propose 3 main sources of context dependence that drive the variation in fish responses to low-flow events: attributes of the low-flow event, attributes of the habitat, and attributes of the fish. Awareness of these sources of context dependence can help managers interpret and explain data, predict vulnerability of fish communities, and prioritize appropriate management actions.

Freshwater Science↗
USGS2009

U.S. Geological Survey Science Strategy for the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative

Southwest Wyoming's wildlife and habitat resources are increasingly affected by energy and urban/exurban development, climate change, and other key drivers of ecosystem change. To ensure that southwest Wyoming's wildlife populations and habitats persist in the face of development and other changes, a consortium of public resource-management agencies proposed the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI), the overall goal of which is to implement conservation actions. As the principal agency charged with conducting WLCI science, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed a Science Strategy for the WLCI. Workshops were held for all interested parties to identify and refine the most pressing management needs for achieving WLCI goals. Research approaches for addressing those needs include developing conceptual models for understanding ecosystem function, identifying key drivers of change affecting WLCI ecosystems, and conducting scientific monitoring and experimental studies to better understand ecosystems processes, cumulative effects of change, and effectiveness of habitat treatments. The management needs drive an iterative, three-phase framework developed for structuring and growing WLCI science efforts: Phase I entails synthesizing existing information to assess current conditions, determining what is already known about WLCI ecosystems, and providing a foundation for future work; Phase II entails conducting targeted research and monitoring to address gaps in data and knowledge during Phase I; and Phase III entails integrating new knowledge into WLCI activities and coordinating WLCI partners and collaborators. Throughout all three phases, information is managed and made accessible to interested parties and used to guide and improve management and conservation actions, future habitat treatments, best management practices, and other conservation activities.

Scientific Investigations Report↗