Geology topics

Research about California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming

Source-linked reports with geographic coverage including California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2025

Range-wide population trend analysis for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)—Updated 1960–2024

Greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ; hereafter sage-grouse) are at the center of State and national land-use policies largely because of their unique life-history traits as an ecological indicator for the health of sagebrush ecosystems. This updated population trend analysis provides State and Federal land and wildlife managers with the best available science to help guide management and conservation plans aimed at benefiting sage-grouse populations and the ecosystems they inhabit. This analysis relied on previously published population trend modeling methodology from Coates and others (2021, 2022a) and incorporates population lek count data for 1960–2024. Included in this report are methodological updates to lek count data aggregation, state-space model forecasting, and targeted annual warning system signals, which are detailed under individual Modification sections. State-space models estimated a 2.9-percent average annual decline in sage-grouse populations between 1966 and 2021 (Period 1, six population oscillations) across their geographical range. The average annual decline among climate clusters for the same number of oscillations ranged between 2.2 and 3.4 percent. Cumulative declines were 41.2, 64.1, and 78.8 percent range-wide in Period 5 (19 years), Period 3 (35 years), and Period 1 (55 years), respectively.

California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Nort↗

USGS2025

A compilation pipeline for wildlife tracking datasets collected from ground-based and satellite-based telemetry transmission devices

Wildlife conservation planning increasingly requires collaboration and integration of research from discrete studies spanning large geographic areas. Tracking datasets are essential for analyzing animal movements and species distributions in relation to environmental conditions and combining them can enable powerful analyses to further aid planning efforts. However, combining datasets necessitates addressing variation in study designs, tracking methodologies, location uncertainty, and data attributes. We outline a compilation pipeline to integrate ground-based and satellite-based telemetry tracking datasets, motivated from our work with greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ), a highly imperiled species of western North America. Our objective was to create a database with a standardized set of attributes to facilitate filtering locations for spatial analyses. Our pipeline phases are: (1) dataset pre-processing, (2) formatting individual datasets to a common template, (3) dataset binding, (4) error checking, and (5) filtering. Our pipeline includes additional functionality to identify coordinates from recurrently visited locations (e.g., nest sites), which may be of special interest. The final compiled sage-grouse database included nearly 5 million locations collected from 53 datasets and over 19,000 birds tracked from 1980 to 2022, including over 11,000 nest locations. Our error checks flagged 3.9 % of locations as likely errors, predominantly collected from satellite-based telemetry transmissions. We demonstrate the ability of our pipeline to identify nest locations and flag erroneous locations by applying it to simulated tracking datasets. Overall, our workflow offers a transferable approach for researchers aiming to standardize wildlife telemetry datasets and conduct ecological analyses for both individual studies and large-scale collaborations.

California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Nort↗

USGS2021

Range-wide greater sage-grouse hierarchical monitoring framework—Implications for defining population boundaries, trend estimation, and a targeted annual warning system

Incorporating spatial and temporal scales into greater sage-grouse ( Centrocercus urophasianus ) population monitoring strategies is challenging and rarely implemented. Sage-grouse populations experience fluctuations in abundance that lead to temporal oscillations, making trend estimation difficult. Accounting for stochasticity is critical to reliably estimate population trends and investigate variation related to deterministic factors on the landscape, which are amenable to management action. Here, we describe a novel, range-wide hierarchical monitoring framework for sage-grouse centered on four objectives: (1) create a standardized database of lek counts, (2) develop spatial population structures by clustering leks, (3) estimate spatial trends at different temporal extents based on abundance nadirs (troughs), and (4) develop a targeted annual warning system to help inform management decisions. Using automated and repeatable methods (software), we compiled a lek database (as of 2019) that contained 262,744 counts and 8,421 unique lek locations from disparate state data. The hierarchical population units (clusters) included 13 nested levels, identifying biologically relevant units and population structure that minimized inter-cluster sage-grouse movements. With these products, we identified spatiotemporal variation in trends in population abundance using Bayesian state-space models. We estimated 37.0, 65.2, and 80.7-percent declines in abundance range-wide during short (17 years), medium (33 years), and long (53 years) temporal scales, respectively. However, some areas exhibited evidence of increasing trends in abundance in recent decades. Models predicted 12.3, 19.2, and 29.6 percent of populations (defined as clusters of neighboring leks) consisted of over 50-percent probability of extirpation at 19, 38, and 56-year projections from 2019, respectively, based on averaged annual rate of change in apparent abundance across two, four, and six oscillations (average period of oscillation is 9.4 years). At the lek level, models predicted 45.7, 60.1, and 78.0 percent of leks with over 50-percent extirpation probabilities over the same time periods, respectively, mostly located on the periphery of the species’ range. The targeted annual warning system automates annual identification of local populations exhibiting asynchronous decline relative to regional population patterns using simulated management actions and an optimization algorithm for evaluating range-wide stabilization of population abundance. In 2019, approximately 3.2 percent of leks and 2.0 percent of populations were identified by the targeted annual warning system for management intervention range-wide.

California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Nort↗

USGS2013

Greater Sage-Grouse National Research Strategy

The condition of the sagebrush ecosystem has been declining in the Western United States, and greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), a sagebrush-obligate species, has experienced concurrent decreases in distribution and population numbers. This has prompted substantial research and management over the past two decades to improve the understanding of sage-grouse and its habitats and to address the observed decreases in distribution and population numbers. The amount of research and management has increased as the year 2015 approaches, which is when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is expected to make a final decision about whether or not to protect the species under the Endangered Species Act. In 2012, the Sage-Grouse Executive Oversight Committee (EOC) of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) requested that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) lead the development of a Greater Sage-Grouse National Research Strategy (hereafter Research Strategy). This request was motivated by a practical need to systematically connect existing research and conservation plans with persisting or emerging information needs. Managers and researchers also wanted to reduce redundancy and help focus limited funds on the highest priority research and management issues. The USGS undertook the development of this Research Strategy, which addresses information and science relating to the greater sage-grouse and its habitat across portions of 11 Western States. This Research Strategy provides an outline of important research topics to ensure that science information gaps are identified and documented in a comprehensive manner. Further, by identifying priority topics and critical information needed for planning, research, and resource management, it provides a structure to help coordinate members of an expansive research and management community in their efforts to conduct priority research.

California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Nort↗