Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with the Great Basin Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner to fill critical information gaps in the inventory of vegetation cover and soil factors including carbon relating to the site resistance to wildfire-promoting invasive plants and site recovery after fire in semiarid uplands. This will support the USGS priorities of providing objective, science-based information needed to facilitate the productive use of large landscapes for military and other uses. Exotic grass invasions and the wildfires they promote have been identified as the most significant threat to the security of the vast, semiarid military and rangeland landscapes in the cold desert range of the Western USA.Research Objectives: The broader objective is to assist state and federal military lands and partnering agencies in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their land management, which foremostly requires the proposed inventory and analysis. The specific objectives are to 1) plan and implement a scientifically defensible, quantitatively based sampling plan, 2) process the samples including analyzing soil texture, 3) analyze the data, summarizing the spatial variation and relationships of native and exotic plants to soil properties, and 4) provide the data and reports of results to USGS.