Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Units | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Units grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number F16AS00373) is a U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service funding action focused on applied research and tool development for natural resource management. The award is structured as a cooperative agreement, which generally means the agency expects to be substantially involved in the project as it is carried out, rather than simply providing funds and receiving a final report. The activity falls under the Natural Resources and Science and Technology / Research and Development category and is associated with CFDA 15.678.

The central purpose of the project is to develop practical tools needed to implement a DNA metabarcoding program for species identification in the Great Lakes basin. DNA metabarcoding refers to using genetic markers and high-throughput sequencing to identify multiple species from a mixed biological sample. In this case, the emphasis is on organisms that are difficult to distinguish using traditional visual methods: morphologically similar larval fish and benthic invertebrates. Larval fish often lack distinctive features that allow reliable species-level identification, and many benthic invertebrates include groups where different species can look extremely similar or require highly specialized taxonomic expertise. By developing a metabarcoding workflow tailored to these organisms and conditions, the project aims to make identification faster, more consistent, and more scalable than conventional microscopy-based identification alone.

A key management driver behind the work is aquatic nuisance species early detection in the Great Lakes. Early detection systems depend on being able to recognize potentially invasive or harmful species as soon as they appear, when eradication or containment is still feasible and before major ecological or economic impacts occur. A metabarcoding-based identification system can support early detection by improving the ability to screen samples for a broad range of taxa, including rare or easily overlooked organisms. The described effort is therefore not basic research for its own sake; it is intended to produce operational tools and methods that can be used in monitoring and response programs within the Great Lakes basin.

In terms of funding details, the opportunity lists an award ceiling of $100,000 and anticipates a single award. Eligible applicants are limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education and private institutions of higher education, reflecting the CESU model that often channels federal research collaborations through universities and their partners. The opportunity is labeled as discretionary, but it is also explicitly described as a notice of intent to award, with the statement that applications are not anticipated. In practice, that language typically indicates the agency already has an intended recipient in mind (often within a CESU network) and is posting the notice to document the planned award rather than to run an open competition.

The posting was created on July 27, 2016. Because it is a notice of intent with no expected application period, the practical takeaway is that this announcement is mainly informative: it signals that the Fish and Wildlife Service planned to fund one university-based project to build and/or refine DNA metabarcoding tools for identifying larval fish and benthic invertebrates, supporting Great Lakes aquatic nuisance species early detection efforts, with up to $100,000 under a cooperative agreement mechanism.

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