Folders: ROOT > ScienceBase Catalog > Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative > WLCI Projects > Science Projects ( Show all descendants )
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Effectiveness Monitoring Effectiveness monitoring was implemented to evaluate the efficacy of habitat treatments and to broadly assess the regional effects of conservation, mitigation, and other management activities coordinated through this initiative. Work has included collecting data associated with past and current habitat treatments (for example, herbicide treatments in sagebrush) to: • assess their effectiveness in meeting WLCI habitat conservation goals, and • help guide the design of future habitat treatments and Best Management Practices. Effectiveness Monitoring included measuring vegetation and soil responses to treatments, developing methods for using remotely sensed estimates of productivity to evaluate...
Categories: Project;
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OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
OGC WMS Service,
ScienceBase Project;
Tags: Science,
data development,
science project
The goal of this project is to develop and use a simulation approach to portray patterns of future oil and gas development and assess its potential effects on wildlife habitat in Southwest Wyoming. This entails using existing energy build-out specifications to locate new oil and gas well pads, wells, and roads on the landscape at annual time steps. Based on results of published species’ responses to well pad, well, and road densities, we map simulated infrastructure to assess potential effects on wildlife species. To evaluate the potential for reducing surface disturbance and minimizing the effects of future development on wildlife, we simulate alternative build-out designs, such as increased use of directional...
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...
Riparian and aquatic ecosystems in semiarid landscapes like Southwest Wyoming contribute significantly to regional biodiversity. Long-term monitoring data that describe streamflow, surface-water quality, and groundwater levels are needed for assessing possible effects of changes in land use, land cover, and climate on those ecosystems. With WLCI funding, surface-water quality has been monitored at four sites, and groundwater levels have been monitored at one site. The monitoring sites were selected to provide baseline characterization of the upper Green River Basin and the Muddy Creek watershed. All data are collected according to USGS methods (Wagner and others, 2006; Kenney, 2010; Sauer and Turnipseed, 2010; Turnipseed...
The effects of soil composition on human and ecological health are well documented. Soil can be a pathway for potentially toxic elements of natural or anthropogenic origin to enter the human or animal body through ingestion, inhalation, or dermal absorption and to enter plants by absorption through root tissues. A soil geochemical survey was conducted in the WLCI study area in southwest Wyoming as part of the long-term monitoring objective of this project. The primary purpose of the survey was to determine the abundance and spatial distribution of 44 chemical elements in soil. Such baseline information is needed by land managers to aid in recognizing and quantifying changes in soil composition caused by either anthropogenic...
Pygmy rabbits are a Wyoming SGCN, and information about how they respond to landscape-scale habitat fragmentation and ongoing energy development is incomplete. Pygmy rabbits are distributed in a patchy manner across the landscape, with small “colonies” of rabbits inhabiting irregularly distributed patches of tall, dense sagebrush. Movements among suitable sagebrush patches are necessary for successful breeding, dispersal, and maintenance of genetic diversity. Threats to pygmy rabbit populations include loss or degradation of suitable habitat patches and habitat fragmentation in the form of barriers to movements between patches. Providing scientific information to help address these threats is at the core of USGS...
The USGS Energy Resources Program assesses coal, oil and gas, and uranium resources, as well as environmental effects of energy resource occurrence and use. To identify the regions where energy resources are most likely to be developed, we apply a geologic understanding to emerging patterns of extraction for each energy commodity and assess the potential for undiscovered resources. Our studies include (1) maintaining a compilation of public and proprietary information on subsurface petroleum (wells installed) for the Greater Green River Basin, (2) developing new geographic information system products that portray geologic studies of energy resources, (3) automating updates of the database on oil and gas development...
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