U.S. Department of the Interior
Twenty years ago, ecological studies were often limited by the number of times biologists could find (relocate) their study animals. With the advent and now widespread use of Global Positioning System (GPS)collars, tracking the animals is no longer a primary concern.
BOEM is required to analyze the air quality impacts from Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas activities as mandated by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Public lands across the West contain myriad Native American cultural sites that often include surficial stone features such as rings, alignments, and cairns.
As part of a broader trial of noninvasive methods to research wild wolves (Canis lupus) in the Superior National Forest (SNF), Minnesota, the USGS Wolf and Deer Project (Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center) explored whether wolves could be remotely monitored using a new, inexpensive (approximately $80 USD in 2019), remotely deployable, passive acoustic recording device.
The Delaware River Basin is an important water resource for Philadelphia and other cities in the region. It was chosen to demonstrate USGS’s model integration efforts to investigate the relationships among water use, land cover, and climate to assess and forecast the impact of changes in these parameters on the environment and water resources.
The recent release of LANDFIRE (LF) 2016 Remap for Alaska concludes a multi-year effort to map vegetation, fuel, and fire regime for the entire United States (CONUS, Alaska, Hawaii, and Insular Areas).
Microbial biofilm communities, which are comprised of bacteria, diatoms, protozoa, and fungi, inhabit the surface of intertidal mudflats. They play a major role in intertidal food webs and comprise a large proportion of shorebirds’ diets, so understanding biofilm distribution, quantity, and nutritional value is important for shorebird conservation and management.
Non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV) includes the residual material left on a field after crop harvest, such as stalks, stubble, and seeds. Satellite-based detection and mapping of NPV supports better understanding of soil health, adoption of conservation tillage practices, and vegetation dynamics in cropland, pasture, and rangeland settings.
Over two-thirds of all land birds and over half of the migratory species in North America move long distances to areas in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean islands. For birds crossing the Gulf of Mexico, habitats along the northern coast provide the last possible stopover before autumn migrants make a nonstop flight.
Telemetry has advanced understanding of wildlife biology in lockstep with advances in technology. Recent development of automated radio tracking systems can provide precise information on habitat use at small-scale and large-scale movements across continents by continually monitoring for tag frequencies.