Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Chesapeake Watershed Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The Wetland and Aquatic Research Center (WARC) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research in a project using the following remote sensing technologies: doppler radar, automated radio telemetry, and audio recording units. Specifically, there is a need to determine avifauna densities, distributions, and diversity using remote sensing technologies mentioned above in relation to border barrier infrastructure along the US-Mexico border within the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. This opportunity will provide an avenue for assisting with the data processing and analysis as well as development of spatially explicit decision support tools that can address fundamental needs of USGS management partners for border wall mitigation, current and future habitat acquisition, restoration, and conservations efforts targeted at flying animals.Research Objectives:Recent research conducted by USGS-WARC scientists and their partners has demonstrated the capacity of remote sensing tools to support management and conservation needs at multiple spatiotemporal scales. These demonstrations imply that remote sensing tools, especially when supplemented with field methods, can play a much larger role in providing science-based decision support tools for management partners, thereby creating a need to further develop the application and conservation value of USGS-WARC’s Avian Ecology and Conservation Research Group. Collaboration with University scientists is intended to provide a more fundamental perspective on the decisions that need to be addressed. In particular, more effort is needed to determine the densities, distributions, and identities of flying animals in relation to human development and associated artificial lighting at night. Remote sensing tools, such as doppler radar, radio telemetry, and audio recording units, have the ability to determine animal response to human development before and after construction or in areas with and without infrastructure, which provides an ideal study design to understand how animals may respond over time and space. For management partners, this would inform long-term management and conservation actions in relation to a border barrier infrastructure. These are the types of problems wish to study in a collaborative partnership.