Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with the Rocky Mountain Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The USGS is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in the following area: detecting plant species habitat to inform management. The research will be used to investigate phenology informed detection models, model transferability across broad regions, analyze spatial patterns of model uncertainty, and optimize the development and delivery of model results to practitioners charged with the management of species. Being able to detect invasive species and habitats helps to prevent the spread of, eradicate or control invasive species by helping practitioners know what species are problematic where. Thus, the research help make land management agencies work more efficient. Many longstanding challenges remain regarding detection of plant species across broad geographic extents related to transferability, uncertainty, and interpretation. For example, multiple methods have been used at local scales to detect plant species. Leveraging satellite data at fine resolutions may allow us to improve accuracy across geographic scales. We can better understand the limits of model prediction and build model credibility among practitioners using models to augment management actions and policies. These approaches must be viewed as accurate by practitioners at a local scale for uptake and be based on the best available science (EO 14303 - Restoring Gold Standard Science, May 23, 2025). An important focus is detection of fire promoting invasive species to inform risk and mitigation activities (EO 14308 - Empowering Commonsense Wildfire Prevention and Response, June 12, 2025).The U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Fort Collins Science Center is offering a cooperative-agreement opportunity to universities having capability to conduct research to conduct studies related to improving the methodologies and analytic approaches for plant species habitat detection using satellite information. This project will function to leverage collaborations to incorporate expertise in plant ecology, statistical programming, and remote sensing into a large existing project on the geographic distribution of manager requested plant species habitat in the United States. Current USGS research interests include (but are not limited to) (1) the improvement of existing code related to data production pipelines and decision support frameworks/tools, (2) assessing geographic model transferability using field data across geographic regions, (3) synthesizing spatial predictors. The outcome of a successful agreement will be research products (data and code) that help DOI and other land-management partners produce and understand the current geographic distribution of plants and the limits of model predictions. Through this CESU agreement, the federal and state university partners will cooperate fully in development of a research program that will produce final products to be used in support of plant species management decisions. The cooperation of the USGS and its CESU partner brings a combination of expertise to address this objective that is greater than that possessed by either partner on its own.