The U.S. Geological Survey 

(USGS), with its multidisciplinary 

structure and role as a federal 

science organization, is well suited 

to provide integrated science in the 

Great Basin of the western United 

States. A research strategy developed 

by the USGS and collaborating 

partners addresses critical 

management issues in the basin, 

including invasive species, status 

and trends of wildlife populations and 

communities, wildfire, global climate 

change, and riparian and wetland 

habitats. Information obtained through 

implementation of this strategy will 

be important for decision-making by 

natural-resource managers.

The Great Basin is an expanse of over 

2.6 million square kilometers (1 million 

square miles) of semi-arid lands punctuated 

by numerous mountain ranges in the western 

United States (Figure 1). Because of the 

large amount and contiguity of public lands 

in the basin, the region offers a compelling 

opportunity to conduct landscape-level, applied 

science in a relatively understudied region. 

In the Great Basin, public land uses 

are diverse and ever-increasing: water 

development, road networks, mining, grazing of domestic livestock, motorized recreation, 

urban expansion, hunting, and timber harvest, 

among others. These uses can affect the 

structure, composition, and function of Great 

Basin ecosystems, often resulting in altered 

hydrologic regimes, spread of exotic species, 

uncharacteristic wildfires, and degraded soils. 

Adaptive management of areas that encompass 

entire watersheds is needed to address these 

changing conditions, and such adaptive 

management requires reliable scientific 

information.

USGS scientists and collaborators have 

developed a long-term research strategy 

designed to address current and future research 

needs for management of the Intermountain 

West’s semi-arid ecosystems administered by 

the Department of the Interior. The research 

questions are relevant to four major western 

basins –the Interior Columbia, Snake River, 

Klamath, and Great basins. In addition to 

synthesizing highest-priority stated information 

needs of natural-resource managers into a few 

integrated research questions, the strategy draws 

from recent scientific literature to create applied 

research questions that support the strategy’s 

ultimate goals. Also, the strategy recognizes 

the dynamic and unpredictable nature of 

ecosystems, and explicitly allows for a range of 

outcomes rather than an unvarying endpoint.

Science for the Changing Great Basin

Figure 1. The Great Basin

U.S. Department of the Interior Fact Sheet 2004-3071

U.S. Geological Survey August 2004 
Guiding Principles

Seven principles guide the proposed 

research, and the research is organized in 

five themes. The strategy melds the use of 

observational studies with experimental 

manipulation, treating management actions 

as experiments whenever feasible. For each 

research issue, the strategy provides a broad 

framework of questions within which specific 

questions and hypotheses can be designed. 

Information justifying the importance of and 

need for research also accompanies each 

issue. Research questions in the strategy 

possess designations to guide prioritization 

of implementation. Designations reflect the 

magnitude and immediacy of the research 

need, as well as the relative risk associated 

with not undertaking the research.

Examples of Research Questions

Aquatic-Terrestrial Interface Theme: What 

are the composition, abundance, and trend 

of spring-dwelling biotas? How do soils and 

nearby communities (e.g., invertebrates, plants, 

large mammals, birds, granivorous mammals) 

respond to changes in spring management? 

Landscape Restoration Theme: Within 

sagebrush ecosystems, how do soil 

characteristics, nutrient and water flows, 

vertebrate and invertebrate assemblages, and 

sagebrush-obligate species vary across the 

landscape in areas of different patch size, 

habitat quality (i.e., composition and cover 

of exotic forbs, native grasses, native forbs), 

grazing history, current grazing system, and 

distance from sagebrush “mainland”? In a 

mosaic of varying land uses and vegetation 

types, how does rate of habitat change and 

conversion compare with historic rates of 

change and conversion? Do size and geometry 

of fragments and their interspersion across 

the landscape predict the spread of exotics, 

nutrient flow into and from ecosystem 

fragments, or abundance of species with large 

or specialized habitat requirements?

Rangeland Health Theme: Are there plant 

or animal species that a) represent a particular 

use, ecosystem, or management concern; b) 

exert disproportionate effects on ecosystem 

composition and function; or c) are important 

functional components of more than one food 

web, plant-animal association, or ecosystem 

(i.e., link species)? If such species do exist, 

what factors limit the ability of trends in one 

species to predict dynamics of other species? 

Collaborators

Management agencies and other 

cooperators were involved in the development 

of the strategy from beginning to end. Several 

groups collectively agreed on the five goals 

and research themes, and each management 

agency contributed their list of research needs. 

Their research questions were reviewed, 

sorted, combined, and edited based on 

current knowledge and methods of applied 

scientists. This filtering occurred through 

personal contacts with scientists and managers 

in meetings and workshops and through 

reviews of current scientific literature. As the 

strategy neared completion, cooperators again 

conducted a final review. Key cooperators 

in development of the plan included Oregon 

State University, Eastern Oregon Agricultural 

Research Station, The Nature Conservancy, 

USDI-Bureau of Land Management, USDIFish and Wildlife Service, USDI-National Park 

Service, USDI-Bureau of Reclamation, USDAAgricultural Research Service, and USDAForest Service.

7 Guiding Principles

• Transition from single-species to habitat- or 

guild-based management

• Recognition of disturbance regimes and 

events as triggers to system change

• Testing the existence of thresholds, alternative 

states, multiple pathways, and trends

• Treatment of management actions as 

opportunities for experimentation

• Testing of assumptions (e.g., indicators, causeeffect relationships), so that management can 

adapt to new information

• Implementation of monitoring and analysis 

at scales ranging from watersheds to 

management units to regions

• Use of control sites to separate natural 

variability from change induced by management

5 Research Themes

Five research themes were chosen jointly 

by managers and scientists from 

cooperating agencies across the Great 

Basin. Sample issues for each theme 

include:

Rangeland health

 • invasive plants

• biological diversity

• fire as a disturbance process

• soil chemistry

• biological soil crusts

Landscape restoration

 • habitat fragmentation and edge effects

• wildlife habitat

• invasive species

• soils

Aquatic-terrestrial interface

 • riparian, wetland, and upland communities

• multiple-scale perspective

• springs

Monitoring for adaptive management

 • vegetation

• wildlife

• fishes

• soils

Species and habitats at risk

 • sagebrush-steppe habitats and sagebrush- 

 obligate species

• expansion of junipers and pinyon pines

• salmonids

• threatened, endangered, and rare species

• ephemeral wetlands

• endemic fishes

The ultimate goal of the research strategy is to provide ideas for integrating emerging scientific understanding into future management in order to:

• Restore and maintain long-term ecosystem health and ecological integrity

• Emphasize adaptive management over the long term

• Provide consistent management direction over broad spatial and temporal scales

• Restore and maintain habitats for plant and animal species

• Support economic and social needs of people, without compromising the 

 above goals

Map of Great Basin produced by Robert G. Elston, Jr. MS, Biological Resources Research Center. Basin 

boundary follows Brussard et al. 1998. Great Basin-Mojave Desert Region in M.J. Mac et al. Status and 

Trends of the Nation’s Biological Resources. 2 vols. U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 

Reston, Virg. Image credits: Sage-grouse, ©Terry Steele; bull trout, Russ Thurow, Rocky Mountain Research Station; others public domain. Authors: Erik Beever and David Pyke. Designed by Sandra Arbogast

The plan is available on the web at: http://fresc.usgs.gov/res_strat.pdf

For additional information contact:

USGS Information and Outreach

Forest & Rangeland Ecosystem 

Science Center

777 NW 9th St., Suite 400

Corvallis, OR 97330

541-750-1030