Threats

Cold-water fishes like trout, salmon, and charr are especially vulnerable to shifting conditions related to climate change; for example, warmer temperatures and more variable hydroclimate. Native cutthroat trout of the southern Rocky Mountains now only occupy a tiny fraction of their historic habitats because of stressors such as non-native fishes, habitat fragmentation, and detrimental land...

A large number of bat species are considered “species of concern” in the United States and its Territories, and resource managers are increasingly interested in learning more about their distribution, status, and potential management.

Since the mid-1990s, several species of non-native, giant constrictor snakes, such as Burmese pythons and boa constrictors, have surfaced in localities throughout southern Florida. Several are known or suspected to be breeding and appear to be spreading northward. Increasingly, media and other reports of sightings or encounters with these animals have emphasized the dangers they could impose on...

Detecting invasive species at low densities or prior to population establishment is critical for successful control and eradication. For example, Burmese pythons occupy thousands of square kilometers of mostly inaccessible habitats.

Partnering with the Caddo Lake Institute, the USGS WARC Advanced Applications Team developed a web-based mapping application that visualizes the paddlefish tracking observations being collected by FWS.

Because of the extreme climate gradients in Hawai‘i, relatively small shifts in atmospheric circulation can cause major changes in rainfall, cloud cover, and humidity. Because it has been shown that cloud water forms an important input at specific sites, we need to understand how these inputs vary across the landscape, or how interactions with plant communities alter direct inputs. Such changes...

The Laysan teal has the most restricted range of any duck species and is especially vulnerable to extinction because of its small population size and vulnerability to climate change. The species was believed to be endemic to one island until new sub-fossil evidence and ancient DNA-testing revealed Laysan teal were widespread across the Hawaiian archipelago. Despite its previously wide distribution...

The palila is an endangered species of Hawaiian honeycreeper which exists only in subalpine forests dominated by māmane and naio on Mauna Kea Volcano. The diet of this finch-billed bird is unusually restricted; immature seeds, flowers, and insects found on māmane trees are critical to its existence. Māmane also is the preferred nesting substrate of the palila. Federal court orders have resulted in...

‘I‘iwi populations have severely declined in recent decades in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO) and elsewhere in the Hawaiian Islands due to the cumulative impacts of many invasive threats that have degraded habitats, disrupted food webs, competed for resources, depredated nests and birds, and transmitted diseases.

Conduct research needed to provide the information and knowledge necessary for decision-makers to make informed decisions pertaining to management of biological resources in Hawai‘i and the Pacific island ecosystems relative to changing climate conditions.

A massive outbreak of the native koa looper moth (Scotorythra paludicola; Geometridae) defoliated more than a third of the koa (Acacia koa) forest on Hawai‘i Island during 2013–2014. Our objective was to record the dynamics of the koa looper (Scotorythra paludicola) outbreak and evaluate the response to the outbreak by the forest ecosystem generally as well as select native and invasive species...

The interior marshes of the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge (TTINWR) are currently negatively impacted by sea level rise through saltwater intrusion from the south which furthers mangrove encroachment into the freshwater marsh.