Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Great Basin CESU | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Great Basin CESU grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number 09HQPA0061) was a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) discretionary funding announcement offered as a cooperative agreement under CFDA 15.808 (USGS Research and Data Collection). It was posted on July 28, 2009, and closed on August 6, 2009 (archived September 5, 2009). The opportunity anticipated making a single award, with an estimated total funding amount of $13,000, and it did not require cost sharing or matching funds. Because it was issued through the CESU program, eligibility was limited to organizations that were already participating partners of the Great Basin Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, reflecting the CESU model of partnering with approved institutions to deliver research, technical assistance, and education.

The project focus centers on understanding how anthropogenic development, particularly renewable energy development and associated infrastructure, affects greater sage-grouse and related ecological dynamics. The work is framed around both short-term and long-term effects of development, with an emphasis on measurable outcomes tied to survival, movement, breeding activity, and predator responses to new structures and roads. In practice, this means combining wildlife monitoring approaches (like radio-marking birds and conducting standardized surveys) with landscape and infrastructure variables (tall structures, roads, and other built features) to isolate how development influences sage-grouse behavior and population indicators.

For short-term effects, the objectives target direct and near-immediate impacts on sage-grouse. First, the project aims to quantify collision mortality linked to tall structures by using a subsample of radio-marked grouse and complementing those data with carcass surveys, which helps capture both known-fate information from marked birds and broader evidence of fatalities in the field. Second, it evaluates how anthropogenic structures and road development influence the probability that sage-grouse use certain areas and the movement paths they take, essentially asking whether infrastructure changes how birds move through and occupy the landscape. Third, it seeks to detect shifts in abundance and the number of breeding birds before and after development occurs, using breeding bird surveys with appropriate controls so that observed changes can be more confidently attributed to development rather than background variation. Fourth, it focuses specifically on lek dynamics by surveying sage-grouse leks before and after energy development, again with controls, and measuring differences in male attendance, since male lek attendance is a commonly used indicator of breeding activity and population status.

For long-term effects, the objectives expand beyond immediate grouse responses to include predator community changes that may occur as development alters the landscape. Fifth, the project aims to identify changes in densities of ravens and raptors associated with renewable energy development, recognizing that new perches, nesting substrates, and human activity can shift predator distribution and abundance over time. Sixth, it looks more closely at raven nesting by quantifying changes in the number of raven nests and determining whether nesting substrate shifts toward anthropogenic structures versus natural sites as development increases. Seventh, it examines changes in predator composition in relation to anthropogenic structures by using videography at grouse nest sites, which can provide direct evidence of which predators are responsible for nest outcomes and whether predator assemblages differ near infrastructure. Eighth, it incorporates predator pressure into demographic modeling by evaluating nest and brood survival inference models that include raven density covariates, strengthening the ability to link predator dynamics to grouse reproductive success. Ninth, it compares juvenile departure rates and diet composition of ravens nesting on anthropogenic structures versus those nesting on natural substrates, using videography to document provisioning and behavior, helping clarify whether human-built nesting sites are associated with different reproductive performance or feeding ecology that could translate into altered predation risk for sage-grouse.

Administratively, the opportunity was managed by the USGS, with the contact listed as Faith Graves, Contract Specialist (phone 703-648-7356), for assistance accessing the full announcement. Overall, the grant is essentially a targeted, research-oriented cooperative agreement aimed at producing field-based evidence on how energy development and related infrastructure influence sage-grouse mortality, movement, and breeding activity, while also tracking longer-term predator responses (particularly ravens) that could indirectly affect sage-grouse nesting and brood survival.

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