|
|
This is a collaborative, two-part project to compile and analyze resource data to support WLCI efforts. Part 1 entails directing data synthesis and assessment activities to ensure that they will inform and support the WLCI LPDTs and Coordination Team in their conservation planning efforts, such as developing conservation priorities and strategies, identifying priority areas for conservation actions, evaluating and ranking conservation projects, and evaluating spatial and ecological relations between proposed habitat projects and WLCI priorities. In FY2014, we helped the Coordination Team complete the WLCI Conservation Action Plan and BLM’s annual report, and we provided maps and other materials to assist with ranking...
|
The mixed mountain shrub community is one of the WLCI priority habitat types and is associated with numerous WLCI conservation priority areas and habitat projects. The current extent and condition of mountain shrub patches is unknown in most of the WLCI region; thus, trends in their condition and mechanisms driving those conditions are also unknown. Ongoing monitoring data from selected stands indicate an overall decline in this community type. Hypotheses as to what is causing the decline range from persistent drought to herbivory and, possibly, factors associated with increased energy development. Our long-term objectives are to measure and map the current conditions and distribution of mixed mountain shrub communities...
|
This is the seventh report produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI) to detail annual activities conducted by the USGS for addressing specific management needs identified by WLCI partners. In FY2014, there were 26 projects, including a new one that was completed, two others that were also completed, and several that entered new phases or directions. The 26 projects fall into several categories: (1) synthesizing and analyzing existing data to identify current conditions on the landscape and using the data to develop models for projecting past and future landscape conditions; (2) monitoring indicators of ecosystem conditions and the effectiveness of on-the-ground...
|
The WLCI has supported numerous aspen habitat treatments in the Sierra Madre Range of south-central Wyoming to reduce conifer cover, increase aspen densities, and diversify stand dynamics. WLCI partners are seeking information on how aspen and under-canopy vegetation have responded to those treatments, the relationship between soil chemistry and mechanical removal of conifers, and the response of invasive species to soil and litter disturbance associated with mechanical removal. To address these and similar questions, in FY2008 the USGS developed a study in the Sierra Madre Range to investigate aspen regeneration, herbivory, and growth rate, and to document interactions between soil disturbance and under-canopy...
|
Members of the WLCI Local Project Development Teams have raised questions about sage-grouse use of past vegetation treatments and which treatment types (such as prescribed burns, mowing, or herbicide applications) best support sage-grouse habitat needs. This study is designed to evaluate (1) greater sage-grouse use of past and current vegetation treatments and (2) how treatment type, design, location, and site-based ecological variation may influence seasonal use and foraging behavior by sage-grouse. Information resulting from this study will be used to develop more effective treatment designs and approaches that support habitat needs for sage-grouse during nesting and brood rearing. Biologists with the BLM and...
|
|
