Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with USGS Rocky Mountain Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit | G21AS00374

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the funding opportunity number and what agency is offering it?

The opportunity is funding opportunity G21AS00374. It is offered by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Fort Collins Science Center, as a cooperative agreement.

What program is this award offered through?

This cooperative agreement is offered through the Rocky Mountain Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) Program.

What is the assistance listing/CFDA number associated with this award?

The announcement identifies CFDA 15.808 (USGS).

What type of award is this?

This is a discretionary cooperative agreement. The announcement emphasizes collaborative analysis, interpretation, and writing between USGS FORT and the CESU-affiliated partner.

Who is eligible to apply?

Eligibility is restricted to organizations that are official partners in the Rocky Mountain CESU network.

What is the maximum award amount (award ceiling)?

The award ceiling is $49,768.

When was the opportunity posted and when did applications close?

The posting/creation date is 2021-03-09, and the original application closing date is 2021-03-26.

What is the focus of the project?

The project focuses on a long-term monitoring dataset from the lower Virgin River corridor in Nevada and Arizona. It is designed to evaluate riparian vegetation responses before and after widespread defoliation of invasive tamarisk (Tamarix spp., also called saltcedar) associated with biological control.

Why is this work needed (what management problem does it address)?

Managers prioritize tamarisk control across western rivers, including DOI bureaus such as NPS, BLM, and FWS. However, ecosystem responses to tamarisk defoliation can vary widely, and managers are concerned about unintended outcomes such as secondary invasions by other nonnative plants, declines in wildlife habitat quality, and increased fire risk. Because many studies cover only short time windows, this opportunity aims to strengthen long-term evidence on riparian plant community trajectories after tamarisk biocontrol.

Where does the monitoring take place?

The monitoring is along the Lower Virgin River, from the Littlefield, Arizona area downstream toward Lake Mead, spanning the lower Virgin River corridor in Nevada and Arizona.

What data already exist, and what years were surveyed?

USGS has conducted repeated, standardized surveys in 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2017. These surveys documented plant community composition and cross-sectional channel and floodplain topography.

How extensive is the monitoring design (transects and reaches)?

The dataset includes 24 established transects distributed across five river reaches, with repeated measurements through time.

Why is summer 2012 important in the dataset?

Significant biocontrol-related defoliation began in summer 2012. This timing makes the dataset especially valuable because it captures conditions before and after that major ecological shift.

What additional sampling was planned as part of the time series?

USGS planned to resample the same transects again in spring 2021 to further extend the multi-year time series for analyzing long-term vegetation change and geomorphic context.

What are the core datasets involved in this cooperative agreement?

The work centers on multi-year datasets describing (1) vegetation composition and (2) cross-sectional channel and floodplain topography (topographic change) collected along established transects.

What is the intended analytical approach?

The partner is expected to analyze long-term vegetation dynamics using time-series approaches that link plant composition trends with repeated topographic surveys, and to apply multivariate and other statistical methods to interpret changes in community composition through time and across reaches.

What are the main objectives and deliverables described in the opportunity?

The announcement outlines practical, deliverable-focused objectives, including: compiling the 2021 vegetation and topographic data; conducting QA/QC; producing a well-documented database with appropriate metadata; analyzing long-term vegetation dynamics (including time-series and multivariate/statistical analyses); producing clear visualizations, tables, and written summaries of methods and results; and collaborating with USGS scientists to draft information products that could feed into peer-reviewed articles and USGS publications.

What does QA/QC mean in the context of this project?

Within this opportunity, QA/QC refers to quality assurance and quality control activities applied to the compiled monitoring data, supporting a reliable, well-documented database and associated metadata.

What is the division of roles between USGS FORT and the CESU partner?

USGS FORT is primarily responsible for providing the multi-year datasets (vegetation composition and topographic change) and contributing riparian ecology and DOI-applied science experience. The CESU-affiliated partner contributes specialized capacity to compile, analyze, and interpret tamarisk-control monitoring data, synthesize relevant scientific and management literature, and translate results into decision-relevant reporting. The announcement also states that analysis, interpretation, and writing are collaborative tasks shared by both parties.

Are USGS Data Releases included as part of this agreement?

No. The notice clarifies that final USGS Data Releases themselves are not part of this agreement, although the cooperative work may support information products such as journal manuscripts and associated outputs.

What kinds of products or outputs are anticipated?

The opportunity anticipates decision-relevant reporting supported by analyses, visualizations, tables, and written summaries. It also anticipates collaborative drafting of information products, including materials that could contribute to peer-reviewed articles and USGS publications.

What management questions is the project intended to inform?

The project is intended to improve guidance on what plant communities tend to replace tamarisk after biocontrol and under what conditions those trajectories lead to desirable or undesirable outcomes, including patterns related to secondary invasions, habitat shifts, and drivers of fire hazard.

How might agencies use the results?

The opportunity is framed to support on-the-ground decisions such as follow-up invasive species control, native revegetation efforts, or targeted fire mitigation. The goal is to help managers anticipate where additional interventions may be needed rather than reacting after problems develop, using a rare long-term monitoring record.

How long is the project expected to take?

The project is described as a discrete body of work expected to be completed in about one year, with allowance for up to two years to accommodate potential pandemic-related delays.

Which species is the primary invasive plant of concern?

The invasive plant highlighted in the announcement is tamarisk (Tamarix spp.), also called saltcedar.

What ecological outcomes are managers particularly concerned about after tamarisk defoliation?

The announcement emphasizes concerns about unintended outcomes, including secondary invasions by other nonnative plants, declines in wildlife habitat quality, and increased fire risk.

What makes this dataset especially useful compared to many existing studies?

The opportunity highlights the value of the multi-year dataset because it spans conditions before and after the start of significant biocontrol-related defoliation (beginning in summer 2012) and extends across multiple survey years, addressing a common limitation of shorter-term studies.