Wherever flowering plants flourish, bees, birds, butterflies, bats and other animals are pollinating them, often unnoticed. Many of these pollinators are in serious decline, which, if it continues, threatens farm production, natural plant communities and other vital services. The U.S. Geological Survey is helping provide the science for pollinator conservation, including a national pollinator health strategy.
That work is one example of how the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area supports the sound management and conservation of the nation's living resources, through research, technical help and education at Cooperative Research Units and science centres in nearly every state. Healthy ecosystems underpin America's quality of life and economy, and ecosystem science helps explain how and why they change, forecast future change, and guide actions to prevent damage and restore them. The mission area works in eight focus areas.
Species of concern
Knowledge and tools to assess, conserve and restore species that federal land and resource agencies are concerned about, such as threatened, endangered and candidate species, marine mammals and migratory species, and, through the Cooperative Research Units that Congress set up partly for this, species of concern to states. The polar bear, protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and listed as threatened, is an example: long-term USGS research on the bears and their habitat, much of it under the Changing Arctic Ecosystems initiative, aims to refine models projecting their future.
Landscape science
Fire in sagebrush steppe. USGS.
Understanding processes and change across large areas and long periods to support landscape-scale decisions. In sagebrush steppe, fire and the spread of cheatgrass threaten land use and healthy ecosystems. The USGS supplies science for the Interior Department's rangeland fire-management strategy, to prevent and fight fire and restore burned land, and on how well ecosystems resist and recover, to guide adaptive management.
Advanced technologies
New tools for faster, safer, more accurate answers. Environmental DNA (eDNA), shed by organisms into water, soil or air, reveals species that are rare, nocturnal, invasive or hard to find, such as manatees, Asian carp or Burmese pythons. The USGS is working with industry on a field eDNA test kit for quicker, cheaper surveillance.
Energy and wildlife
Wind turbines. USGS.
The fast growth of wind energy has raised concern for wildlife. USGS science explores why some fliers, such as bats, collide with turbines and develops ways to reduce deaths; managers and operators now use its statistical tools to estimate fatalities at wind facilities. New monitoring methods and habitat models will show how species such as golden eagles could be affected, and support siting, permitting and mitigation.
Ecosystem services
Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Photograph courtesy of the National Park Service, by Robert Crootof.
Measuring the value of what nature provides. With the National Park Service, the USGS estimates that parks in the conterminous United States store 14.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, a climate-regulating service worth more than $580 million annually, one of many benefits of parks that markets don't price.
Ecological flows
A USGS decision-support system for the Delaware River Basin. USGS.
Understanding how much water species and aquatic communities need, and tools to weigh water-allocation choices. The Delaware River Basin, spanning parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, supplies water to 15 million people and much wildlife; a USGS decision-support system gives habitat data for key species, including sport and migratory fish and endangered species, to help managers meet human and ecological needs.
Emerging diseases and biosecurity
The ecology of fish and wildlife diseases, and tools for surveillance, control and risk assessment. White-nose syndrome, a fatal fungal infection of hibernating bats, has killed at least 6 million bats since 2006, threatening some species. The USGS leads research on it and supports the national management plan by developing treatments.
Invasive species
A USGS scientist with an Asian carp. USGS.
Early detection, control and risk assessment for damaging invaders. To protect a multibillion-dollar fishery by keeping Asian carp out of the Great Lakes, USGS scientists work with federal, state and local agencies on molecular tests that detect carp at low numbers, behavioural deterrents, and targeted toxicants that spare native species.
Funding
Congress funds the mission area through six programmes: Cooperative Research Units, Environments, Fisheries, Invasive Species, Status and Trends, and Wildlife. More: usgs.gov/ecosystems · 1-888-ASK-USGS.
Sources
- U.S. Geological Survey, Science from genes to landscapes, Fact Sheet 2015–3057. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20153057
- The original's banner and bat photograph (iStock), and two photographs of uncertain origin, are not reproduced here.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from pubs.usgs.gov
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