Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Great Basin CESU | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

This grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number 10HQPA0024) is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) cooperative agreement issued through the Great Basin Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU). It is run by the USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center (FRESC) and is aimed specifically at Great Basin CESU member universities that can carry out research on the vulnerability of quaking aspen woodlands and the bird communities that depend on them in the northern Great Basin. The project sits in the Science and Technology/Research and Development category and is intended to support a single award, with an estimated total funding amount of $156,286. There is no cost-sharing or matching requirement listed. The opportunity was originally posted on December 10, 2009, with a closing date of December 18, 2009, and it was later archived on January 17, 2010.

The core purpose of the work is to help land and wildlife managers understand how climate change, land use, and disturbance processes are likely to reshape aspen ecosystems and associated birds across the northern Great Basin. The announcement highlights that quaking aspen is declining across much of the western United States, and it links those declines to several interacting pressures, including altered fire regimes, conifer encroachment and competition, herbivory, drought stress, disease, and insect outbreaks. Because aspen stands often support higher bird abundance and biodiversity than surrounding habitat types, the persistence of many regional bird species is implied to be closely tied to whether aspen remains on the landscape in sufficient extent and condition. In practical terms, the research is positioned as decision-relevant science for agencies responsible for aspen ecology, restoration, and wildlife conservation.

The opportunity lays out four main research questions that proposals are expected to address in a management-useful way. First, it asks for an assessment of current aspen conditions across the landscape, including succession stage, stand structure, and spatial distribution, and how those attributes relate to bird abundance. Second, it seeks an understanding of how disturbances such as grazing and fire have shaped both aspen stand condition/distribution and bird abundance/distribution, emphasizing that current patterns are the result of past land use and disturbance histories. Third, it asks how global climate change is likely to influence aspen condition and distribution moving forward, and what those changes could mean for bird species that use aspen habitat. Fourth, it focuses on management: how current strategies, as well as adaptive changes to those strategies, might alter long-term risk, resilience, and persistence of aspen stands and the bird communities associated with them.

A central deliverable is the development of a spatially explicit, dynamic landscape simulation model using the LANDIS-II modeling framework. The project is not framed as a generic modeling exercise; instead, the model is expected to be grounded in empirical data collected from Great Basin aspen woodlands by USGS scientists. The model must be capable of simulating aspen community dynamics and disturbance processes under alternative land-use and climate scenarios. It must also represent feedbacks among management decisions (for example, prescribed fire), disturbance regimes (such as drought and wildfire), and climate change, rather than treating these drivers as isolated influences. Another explicit requirement is that the LANDIS-II model be able to couple with empirical, data-driven models of bird habitat relationships, so that vegetation and disturbance projections can be translated into implications for avian communities.

Although the modeling effort is anchored in the relatively isolated aspen populations typical of mountain ranges in northern Nevada, the announcement makes it clear that USGS wants broader value from the work. The intent is that the modeling approach and results should be transferable or informative at the scale of the broader northern Great Basin region, including eastern Oregon, southern Idaho, northern Nevada, and western Utah. Beyond that regional frame, the agency emphasizes that the science should be relevant to management agencies and conservation organizations working on aspen ecology throughout North America, meaning proposals are expected to produce insights and tools that generalize beyond a single study area even if they are calibrated locally.

Eligibility is restricted to institutions that are participating partners in the Great Basin CESU network, reflecting the CESU program structure as a partnership mechanism for research, technical assistance, and education. The award instrument is a cooperative agreement, which typically indicates substantial federal involvement in shaping or collaborating on the work compared to a standard grant. The funding listing is associated with CFDA 15.808 (USGS Research and Data Collection), and the opportunity anticipates one award rather than multiple smaller projects. The notice also indicates that all research proposals must address the stated objectives, while evaluation criteria (referenced but not reproduced in the text provided) would give higher scores to proposals that also align with selected priority research topics noted in the full announcement.

For administrative questions or trouble accessing the announcement, the listed contact is Faith Graves, Contract Specialist, at 703-648-7356.

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