Program description: The Center provides scientific understanding and technology to support sound management and conservation of forest and rangeland ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain West.

Program description: The Center studies the effects of the operation of Glen Canyon Dam on downstream resources within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Grand Canyon National Park.

Science Center and Field Station funding are estimates and do not include cyclical funds.

Uncontrollable cost increases for this subactivity total $268, of which $123 will be budgeted and $145 will be absorbed through increased efficiencies.

Program changes for this subactivity total include: a reduction of -$18 for travel and transportation and -$106 in streamlining savings resulting from organizational restructuring and workforce balancing.

Current Program Highlights

The Cooperative Research Units program is a unique cooperative partnership among Federal and State Governments and academia, and is one of USGS's strongest links to Federal and State management agencies. The program provides the natural resource management community with scientific information and trained personnel to implement sound resource management. Federal scientists stationed at universities (1) help identify and respond to natural resource information needs through the pooling of resources among agencies; (2) provide access to scientific expertise among Unit scientists, university faculty, and other Unit cooperators, especially where the required expertise is not readily available within Federal resource agencies; and (3) provide Federal and other natural resource managers access to a geographically dispersed science organization of Units to meet information needs that transcend State and regional boundaries. Federal support of the Cooperative Research Units is multiplied by State and university cooperator contributions of expertise, equipment, facilities, and project funding, thereby enhancing the program's cost-effectiveness. Local guidance of individual Units by Unit cooperators ensures that projects addressed by the Units are high priority. Through university affiliations, Unit scientists train future natural resource professionals and provide opportunities through graduate education to diversify the Federal workforce.

The Cooperative Research Unit program is comprised of 39 Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units located at leading universities in 37 States, and a headquarters office in Reston, VA. For the past 5 years, the program has been actively filling Unit science vacancies as funded and directed by Congress. Full staffing of all 116 research scientist positions is nearing completion, with current vacancies primarily representing turn-over of personnel through reassignments, retirements, etc.

Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units support the information needs of game, fish, and natural resource agencies in the States, Department of the Interior bureaus (USGS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS], Bureau of Land Management (BLM], Bureau of Reclamation, and National Park Service), U.S. Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Defense, and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration as well as non-profit organizations such as Ducks Unlimited, National Wild Turkey Federation, and the Nature Conservancy. Units also provide city and local governments technical support in resource conservation and land use planning.

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The Unit program has remained highly productive in scientific, academic, and outreach activities. During FY 2001, Unit scientists, affiliates, and students published more than 350

Biological Research

scientific papers, submitted more than 330 reports to management agencies, and presented more than 1,000 papers and workshops to natural resource professional societies and agencies. In total, over 1,100 research projects were active in FY 2001, with more than 200 projects completed and approximately 180 new projects initiated in response to State and Federal agency needs. Unit projects covered a wide range of disciplines, including biodiversity, invasive species, anadromous fish and migratory bird management, habitat management and restoration, wildlife diseases, fire ecology, environmental contaminants, imperiled species propagation an restoration, and population modeling and genetics.

Through affiliations with host universities, Unit scientists advise and mentor approximately 600 graduate students. More than 120 of these students received graduate degrees in FY 2001. Activities also involve Unit sponsorship of undergraduate and graduate education programs for minorities that are underrepresented in the Federal workforce. These efforts focus on minority student recruitment and career training in natural resources and include USGS programs for minority students at the University of Arizona, and a national scholars in fisheries program at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

Unit scientists work directly with resource managers to identify, understand and address information needs through research and technical assistance. Resource managers depend on the Units to provide these services in a timely, cost-efficient manner. Units provide not only the expertise of Unit scientists, but also provide access to the expertise and the full range of capabilities available at leading universities throughout the Country. Unit projects may be small and site specific (how does a water management regime affect waterfowl food resources at a specific refuge) or large in scope and scale (fish habitat and diversity in the Missouri River watershed). Depending on the resource need, Units provide multi-agency coordination and project management of complex, large scale investigations essential to the understanding of resource issues at local, State, regional, and national levels.

Recent Accomplishments

Animal Biodiversity, Surveys, and Monitoring

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The California Cooperative Fishery Research Unit determined the distribution of steelhead trout and other anadromous salmonids in Kings Range National Conservation Area. The information assists the BLM in setting management goals for this wilderness area and the National Marine Fisheries Service in evaluating the status of steelhead relative to the Endangered Species Act.

The Missouri Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit assisted the national Gap Analysis Program and the Mexican biological research agency CONABIO in completing an analysis of habitats traversing the lower Rio Grande River. This effort will facilitate management and restoration of one of North America's most species-rich ecosystems.

The New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit completed the New York Gap Analysis Project in December 2000. The National Gap Analysis Program Office reviewed, revised, and accepted the final report. The text of the report and associated spatial data is available for distribution on CD. All mapped species, except for 8 nonnative, introduced species, were included in the gap analysis process for a total of 358 native vertebrate species evaluated.

Cooperative Research Units Subactivity

• The Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, with funding provided by Defenders of Wildlife, used GIS analyses to identify and map areas in central Idaho and western Montana where conflict between wolf populations and livestock is least likely to occur. The project involved cooperation among Federal land managers, private conservation groups, and livestock producers. Managers use the maps produced to guide wolf management activities such as introductions or relocations, while minimizing potential conflicts with livestock.

The New York Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit assessed population status and distribution of grassland birds of special concern in New York. This information will be used as the scientific basis for State resource managers and land use planners seeking to balance land-use practices with habitat conservation for sensitive, grassland bird species.

Biometrics and Modeling

⚫ The North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit completed a computer program to improve the process for selecting population models for mallard population dynamics. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will use this information to evaluate the effects of harvest on mallard populations and thus improve the agency's ability to provide science-based harvest regulations.

⚫ The Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, with support from Ducks Unlimited, investigated potential applications of adaptive management to conservation of waterfowl breeding habitat in the prairie pothole region of the United States and Canada. The project represents an important step toward helping national and international decision makers to incorporate the best available information and optimize ecological benefits of conservation actions while minimizing costs.

The Georgia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit completed a 3-year study on demographics of finches breeding in northeastern Spain. This work, conducted at the request of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is being used to guide conservation and management of birds species in areas of high human population density in western Europe.

The North Carolina Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit adapted existing survey models employing bird vocalizations to improve abilities of resource managers to estimate and monitor breeding bird populations in North America.

Ecosystem Management

⚫ The New Mexico Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit identified a process for incorporating landscapes into conservation planning models related to 400,000 hectare of military lands on Fort Bliss Military Reservation. The report provided the context for placing the reservation's properties into an ecological and land stewardship matrix extending beyond lands owned and managed by Fort Bliss Military Reservation. The Directorate of Environment at Fort Bliss uses this information as part of decision support for natural resource planning.