Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, North and West Alaska CESU | Apply Online

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, North and West Alaska CESU funding opportunity (G16AS00059)?

This opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number G16AS00059) is a US Geological Survey (USGS) discretionary research award offered through a cooperative agreement. It is focused on advancing scientific understanding of how climate trends and year-to-year climate variability relate to phenology, or the timing of recurring biological events.

Which federal agency is offering this grant?

The program is issued by the Department of the Interior (DOI), US Geological Survey (USGS), identified as AgencyName: DOI-USGS1.

What is the CFDA number for this opportunity?

The opportunity is listed under CFDA 15.808.

What is the main scientific topic of the award?

The award centers on phenology and how it connects to climate change and climate variability. Phenology includes events such as leaf-out, flowering, insect emergence, and animal migration, and the goal is to better understand and ultimately predict how climate affects these events and related natural resources.

What does "phenology" mean in the context of this opportunity?

Phenology refers to the timing of recurring biological events, such as when leaves emerge, flowers bloom, insects appear, or animals migrate. The grant aims to connect these timing signals to climate trends and year-to-year climate variability.

What is the broader purpose of the project described in this grant?

The broader purpose is to improve the ability to understand and ultimately predict how climate change and climate variability affect natural resources, with practical relevance for ecosystem and land management decisions.

What key scientific challenge does the funding opportunity highlight?

A central challenge is scaling: linking detailed local phenology observations (at the level of organisms or sites) to patterns detectable at much larger spatial extents, from regional to continental scales (roughly 10 km up to 10,000 km).

Why is scaling phenology observations important for management and policy?

Management and policy decisions often occur at landscape to regional scales, while many phenology measurements are collected at specific plots, species, or stations. Scaling helps connect local observations to the spatial scales at which decisions are typically made.

What are phenology cameras (phenocams)?

Phenocams are fixed cameras that repeatedly image vegetation or landscapes over time. They produce high-frequency visual records that can be converted into quantitative measures of seasonal change, such as greenness indices and the timing of spring green-up and autumn senescence.

What are the near-term (short-term) goals of the award?

The near-term focus is on phenocam products. The short-term goals are to process phenocam data into usable products, distribute those products to research and user communities, and develop a clear plan describing how the products can be used to achieve longer-term scaling and prediction goals.

What types of products are expected from phenocam data?

The opportunity describes products derived from phenocam imagery, including quantitative measures of seasonal change such as greenness indices and metrics capturing timing of spring green-up and autumn senescence.

How should the phenocam datasets be delivered?

The opportunity emphasizes delivering datasets in standardized formats so they are easy to discover, interpret, combine with other datasets, and reuse across different projects and applications.

Where are the processed phenocam products expected to be promoted and made available?

The processed phenocam products are expected to be promoted and made available through the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) and the North Central Climate Science Center (NC CSC) websites.

Who are the intended users of the outputs?

The distribution approach signals that the outputs are meant to support a wide range of users, including researchers studying climate-ecosystem interactions and resource managers who need timely and comparable indicators of ecosystem conditions.

How do standardized, publicly promoted products help the research and management community?

Standardized products can enable cross-site analyses, improve integration with other monitoring networks and remote sensing, and support management questions tied to seasonality and climate sensitivity.

What type of award mechanism is used?

This is a discretionary research award offered through a cooperative agreement.

What is the activity category for this opportunity?

The opportunity is listed in the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category.

Who is eligible to apply?

Eligibility is limited to CESU partners. The eligible applicants are shown as "Others" with clarification provided in the full eligibility text, reflecting the CESU model of collaboration among federal agencies, universities, and research institutions.

How many awards are expected, and what is the funding ceiling?

The anticipated funding is targeted: one expected award with a ceiling of $24,000.

When was this opportunity posted and when was the application deadline?

The opportunity was posted (and created) on April 27, 2016, with an application deadline of May 13, 2016.

What does the short application window suggest about the nature of the work?

The dates indicate a short turnaround that is typical of small, focused cooperative research tasks, aligned here with targeted phenocam processing, standardization, distribution, and planning deliverables.

What is the long-term vision connected to this short-term phenocam work?

The longer-term vision is to interpret phenology consistently across ecosystems and landscapes, improve comparisons among locations, and increase confidence in models and forecasts that translate climate signals into ecological impacts.

What is the main outcome the grant is trying to achieve overall?

The grant is a targeted investment in phenocam data processing, standardization, and distribution, paired with a planning component that ties these deliverables to a longer-term strategy for scaling and prediction. The intended outcome is improved datasets and a clearer pathway for using phenocam products to bridge local observations with broader climate and ecosystem analyses.