The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem 

Science Strategy, 2012–2022—Advancing 

Discovery and Application Through 

Collaboration—Public Review Release

By Byron K. Williams, G. Lynn Wingard, Gary Brewer, James Cloern, Guy 

Gelfenbaum, Robert B. Jacobson, Jeffrey L. Kershner, Anthony D. McGuire, 

James D. Nichols, Carl D. Shapiro, Charles van Riper III, and Robin P. White

Open-File Report 2012–1092

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Department of the Interior

KEN SALAZAR, Secretary

U.S. Geological Survey

Marcia K. McNutt, Director

U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2012

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visit http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod

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U.S. Government.

Although this report is in the public domain, permission must be secured from the individual copyright owners to 

reproduce any copyrighted materials contained within this report.

Suggested citation:

Williams, B.K., Wingard, G.L., Brewer, Gary, Cloern, James, Gelfenbaum, Guy, Jacobson, R.B., Kershner, J.L., McGuire, 

A.D., Nichols, J.D., Shapiro, C.D., van Riper III, Charles, and White, R.P., 2012, The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem 

Science Strategy, 2012–2022—Advancing discovery and application through collaboration: U.S. Geological Survey 

Open-File Report 2012–1092, 29 p.
iii

Foreword

In 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published a Bureau Science Strategy Facing Tomorrow’s 

Challenges—U.S. Geological Survey Science in the Decade 2007–2017. It provided a view of the future, 

establishing science goals that reflected the USGS’s fundamental mission in areas of societal impact such 

as energy and minerals, climate and land use change, ecosystems, natural hazards, environmental health, 

and water. Intended to inform long-term program planning, the strategy emphasizes how USGS science 

can make substantial contributions to the well-being of the Nation and the world. 

In 2010, I realigned the USGS management and budget structure, changing it from a structure associated 

with scientific disciplines—Geography, Geology, Biology and Hydrology—to an issue-based organization 

along the lines of the Science Strategy. My aim was to align our management structure with our mission, our science priorities, our metrics for success, and our budget. An added benefit was that the USGS 

immediately appeared relevant to more Americans and it became easier for those outside the agency to 

navigate our organizational structure to find where within the USGS they would find the solution to their 

problem. External partners rarely approached us with a problem in “geology,” but they might need help 

with an issue in climate change or energy research. 

The new organization is focused on seven science mission areas:

•	Climate and Land Use Change

•	Core Science Systems

•	Ecosystems

•	Energy and Minerals

•	Environmental Health

•	Natural Hazards

•	Water

The scope of each of these new mission areas is broader than the science directions outlined in the USGS 

Science Strategy and together cover the scope of USGS science activities. 

In 2010, I also commissioned seven Strategic Science Planning Teams (SSPTs) to draft science strategies 

for each USGS mission area. Although the existing Bureau Science Strategy could be a starting point for 

this exercise, the SSPTs had to go well beyond the scope of the existing document. What is of value and 

enduring from the work of the programs that existed under the former science disciplines needed to be 

reframed and reinterpreted under the new organization of the science mission areas. In addition, new 

opportunities for research directions have emerged in the five years since the Bureau Science Strategy 

was drafted, and exciting possibilities for cooperating and collaborating in new ways are enabled by the 

new mission focus of the organization.

Scientists from across the Bureau were selected for these SSPTs for their experience in strategic planning, broad range of experience and expertise, and knowledge of stakeholder needs and relationships. 

Each SSPT was charged with developing a long-term (10-year) science strategy that encompasses the 

portfolio of USGS science in the respective mission area. Each science strategy will reinforce others 

because scientific knowledge inherently has significance to multiple issues. Leadership of the USGS and 

the Department of the Interior will use the science vision and priorities developed in these strategies 

for program guidance, implementation planning, accountability reporting, and resource allocation. These 

strategies will guide science and technology investment and workforce and human capital strategies. 

They will inform our partners regarding opportunities for communication, collaboration, and coordination.

The USGS has taken a significant step toward demonstrating that we are ready to collaborate on the most 

pressing natural science issues of our day and the future. I believe a leadership aligned to support these 

issue-based science directions and equipped with the guidance provided in these new science strategies 

in the capable hands of our scientists will create a new era for USGS of which we can all be proud.

Marcia McNutt 

 Director
iv

About this Report

This draft document describes a 10-year strategy to address priority environmental and resource 

management challenges for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Ecosystems Mission Area. The 

strategy articulates a vision to improve understanding of how and why ecosystems change and 

explains how USGS ecosystem science can help inform managers and policy-makers to sustain 

and restore natural resources, protect vital ecosystem services, and secure the long-term health 

and economic well-being of U.S. citizens. Ecosystem science is by nature a collaborative process 

involving many scientific disciplines and expertise. While the USGS has a strong, interdisciplinary science workforce, it is not the only agency involved in ecosystem research. We recognize 

that many federal, state, and non-governmental agencies and universities are actively involved 

in ecosystem research, and we hope that the strategy articulated in this document will provide a 

framework to build on interdisciplinary partnerships for collaborative ecosystem research. 

Fundamental to the ongoing development of the Ecosystem Strategy has been the engagement 

of external partners and USGS scientists and managers across USGS mission areas. Team 

members have participated in more than 25 listening sessions, including sessions held for USGS 

regional offices, science centers, offices of other Department of the Interior (DOI) bureaus, and 

participants at regional science workshops and national conferences. Input has been received 

verbally and in writing from many USGS colleagues, partners, and stakeholders who addressed 

the team via teleconferences, during listening sessions, and through the USGS Science Strategy 

Planning Team (SSPT) Web site. The team has compiled, categorized, and considered verbal and 

written input from all of these sources. Stakeholder engagement will continue with the review 

of this Open-File Report. The report will be distributed for review by the public, and all comments received will be given careful consideration in developing a final strategy that is targeted 

for publication as a USGS Circular. Future implementation will involve a collaborative process 

among USGS associate directors and area executives, program coordinators, science center 

directors, and DOI partners.

2007

USGS Science Strategy

defines mission areas

2012

Mission areas develop

strategic plans

Future

Implementation plans

will be developed
v

What to Expect in this Report

This report presents a strategic vision for the USGS Ecosystems Mis-

sion Area that addresses priority environmental issues. It describes 

the role of the USGS based on our unique scientific capabilities that, 

traditionally, are applied in collaboration with others. The strategy 

is structured around five complementary and interdependent goals. 

These goals collectively emphasize the connections between discov-

ery and application and promote enhanced partnerships. Four highlevel cross-cutting strategic approaches provide the path forward 

toward implementation of the goals and support the science frame-

work in the strategy. Proposed actions are presented as examples of 

specific activities that address the needs of the Nation and align with 

the goals, challenges, and strategic approaches outlined in the strat-

egy. Text boxes highlight examples of USGS ecosystem science that 

informs resource management decisions. The report concludes with 

a vision of USGS ecosystem science that will be undertaken over the 

next decade in collaboration with our partners. The next steps toward 

future implementation of this strategy will require the USGS to work 

closely with our partners and stakeholders to develop the science 

foundation for sustaining the Nation’s natural resources.

Priority 

Societal

Issues

Strategic

Approaches

Goals and

Challenges

Proposed

Actions
vi

Contents

Foreword ........................................................................................................................................................iii

About this Report ..........................................................................................................................................iv

What to Expect in this Report .............................................................................................................v

Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................................1

Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................3

Why Does the Nation Need Ecosystem Science? ..........................................................................3

What is Ecosystem Science? .............................................................................................................3

Roles of Scientific Discovery and Application.................................................................................4

Building on USGS Foundations and Strengths ................................................................................5

Holistic, Cross-Scale Science Capabilities .............................................................................5

Monitoring, Assessment, and Modeling..................................................................................6

Interdisciplinary Science ...........................................................................................................6

Science Organization of USGS..................................................................................................6

Building on USGS Partnerships..........................................................................................................6

Ecosystem Science Goals............................................................................................................................7

Overview.................................................................................................................................................7

Goal 1: Improve Understanding of Ecosystem Structure, Function, and Processes.................9

Justification ..................................................................................................................................9

Major Challenges.......................................................................................................................10

Goal 2: Advance Understanding of How Drivers Influence Ecosystem Change......................10

Justification ................................................................................................................................10

Major Challenges.......................................................................................................................10

Goal 3: Improve Understanding of the Services That Ecosystems Provide to Society...........11

Justification ................................................................................................................................11

Major Challenges.......................................................................................................................11

Goal 4: Develop Tools, Technologies, and Capacities to Inform Decision-Making 

About Ecosystems.................................................................................................................12

Justification ................................................................................................................................12

Major Challenges.......................................................................................................................12

Goal 5: Apply Science to Enhance Strategies for Management, Conservation, and 

Restoration of Ecosystems ..................................................................................................13

Justification ................................................................................................................................13

Major Challenges.......................................................................................................................13

Integrating Ecosystems Science Across the USGS ..............................................................................14

Climate and Land-Use Change ................................................................................................15

Water .........................................................................................................................................16

Natural Hazards .........................................................................................................................16

Energy and Minerals .................................................................................................................16

Environmental Health................................................................................................................16

Core Science Systems..............................................................................................................16
vii

Strategic Approaches and Outcomes: The Path Forward....................................................................17

Strategic Approach 1. Assess Information Needs for Ecosystem Science Through 

Enhanced Partnerships........................................................................................................17

Strategic Approach 2. Promote the Use of Interdisciplinary Ecosystem Science ..................18

Strategic Approach 3. Enhance Modeling and Forecasting .......................................................18

Strategic Approach 4. Support Decision-Making .........................................................................19

Proposed Actions.........................................................................................................................................20

Summary and Vision of Ecosystem Science for the USGS...................................................................23

Important Next Steps ..................................................................................................................................24

References Cited..........................................................................................................................................24

Appendix 1. Author Affiliations and Acknowledgments........................................................................28

Appendix 2. Key Terms................................................................................................................................29

Figures

1. Diagram showing ecosystem science builds on the interaction between new 

knowledge from scientific discovery and applications of that knowledge ........................5

2. Diagram showing U.S. Geological Survey ecosystem science must incorporate 

the study of an ecosystem and the drivers influencing the system while fully 

engaging and integrating resource management in the process ......................................14

Highlights

Elwha River Dam Removal............................................................................................................................3

Lake Drying in Alaska....................................................................................................................................4

Species Recovery in the Missouri River Basin.........................................................................................4

Colorado River Management.......................................................................................................................7

Waterfowl Harvest.........................................................................................................................................8

Invasion of Asian Carps in the Great Lakes ..............................................................................................9

Stressors to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ..................................................................................10

Valuing Ecosystem and Economic Services Across Land-Use Scenarios in the 

Prairie Potholes ..............................................................................................................................11

Everglades Restoration...............................................................................................................................12

Red Knots and Horseshoe Crabs .............................................................................................................13

Phenology and Climate ...............................................................................................................................15

U.S.–Mexico Border....................................................................................................................................17

Golden Eagles in Denali Park.....................................................................................................................19

The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 

2012–2022—Advancing Discovery and Application 

Through Collaboration

By Byron K. Williams, G. Lynn Wingard, Gary Brewer, James Cloern, Guy Gelfenbaum, Robert B. Jacobson, 

Jeffrey L. Kershner, Anthony D. McGuire, James D. Nichols, Carl D. Shapiro, Charles van Riper III, and 

Robin P. White

Executive Summary

Ecosystem science is critical to making informed decisions about natural resources that can sustain our Nation’s economic and environmental well-being. Resource managers and 

policy-makers are faced with countless decisions each year at 

local, state, tribal, territorial, and national levels on issues as 

diverse as renewable and non-renewable energy development, 

agriculture, forestry, water supply, and resource allocations 

at the urban-rural interface. The urgency for sound decisionmaking is increasing dramatically as the world is being transformed at an unprecedented pace and in uncertain directions. 

Environmental changes are associated with natural hazards, 

greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing demands for water, 

land, food, energy, mineral, and living resources. At risk is 

the Nation’s environmental capital, the goods and services 

provided by resilient ecosystems that are vital to the health and 

well-being of human societies. Ecosystem science—the study 

of systems of organisms interacting with their environment 

and the consequences of natural and human-induced change 

on these systems—is necessary to inform decision-makers as 

they develop policies to adapt to these changes. 

This Ecosystems Science Strategy is built on a framework that includes basic and applied science. It highlights 

the critical roles that USGS scientists and partners can play 

in building scientific understanding and providing timely 

information to decision-makers. The strategy underscores the 

connection between scientific discoveries and the application 

of new knowledge. The strategy integrates ecosystem science 

and decision-making, producing new scientific outcomes to 

assist resource managers and providing public benefits.

The USGS is uniquely positioned to play an important 

role in ecosystem science. With its wide range of expertise, 

the agency can bring holistic, cross-scale, interdisciplinary 

capabilities to the design and conduct of monitoring, research, 

and modeling and to new technologies for data collection, 

management, and visualization. Collectively, these capabilities can be used to reveal ecological patterns and processes, 

explain how and why ecosystems change, and forecast change 

over different spatial and temporal scales. USGS science can 

provide managers with options and decision-support tools to 

use resources sustainably. The USGS has long-standing, collaborative relationships with the DOI and other partners in the 

natural sciences, in both conducting science and its application. The USGS engages these partners in cooperative investigations that otherwise would lack the necessary support or be 

too expensive for a single bureau to conduct. 

The heart of this strategy is a framework and vision for 

USGS ecosystems science that focuses on five long-term 

goals, which are seen as interconnected and reinforcing 

components:

• Improve understanding of ecosystem structure, 

function, and processes. The focus for this goal is an 

understanding of how ecosystems work, including the 

dynamics of species, their populations, interactions, 

and genetics, and how they change across spatial and 

temporal scales.

• Advance understanding of how drivers influence 

ecosystem change. The challenges here are explaining 

the drivers of ecosystem change, their spatio-temporal 

patterns, their uncertainties and interactions, and their 

influence on ecosystem processes and dynamics.

• Improve understanding of the services that ecosystems provide to society. Here the emphasis is on the 

measurement of environmental capital and ecosystem 

services, and the identification of sources and patterns 

of change in space and time.

• Develop tools, technologies, and capacities to inform 

decision-making about ecosystems. This includes 

developing new technologies and approaches for 

conducting applications-oriented ecosystem science. A 

principal challenge will be how to quantify uncertainty 

and incorporate it in decision analysis.

• Apply science to enhance strategies for management, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems.
2 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

These challenges include development of novel 

approaches to monitoring, assessment, and restoration of ecosystems; new methods to address species 

of concern and communities at risk; and innovations 

in decision analysis and support to address imminent 

ecosystem changes or those that are underway. 

Closely integrated with the five goals are four strategic 

approaches that provide the path forward for the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area. These approaches cross-cut all of the 

goals and are seen as essential to the implementation of this 

strategy: 

• Assess information needs for ecosystem science 

through enhanced partnerships. Work with the DOI 

and other agencies and institutions to identify, design, 

and implement priority decision-driven ecological 

research. 

• Promote the use of interdisciplinary ecosystem 

science. Design and conduct interdisciplinary processoriented research in ecosystem science. 

• Enhance modeling and forecasting. Build models to 

forecast ecosystem change, assess future management 

scenarios, and reduce uncertainties through an adaptive 

learning process. 

• Support decision-making. Use quantitative 

approaches to assess the vulnerabilities of ecosystems, 

habitats, and species, and evaluate strategies for adaptation, restoration, and sustainable management. 

Following the strategic approaches are a set of proposed 

actions that represent a sampling of specific activities that 

align with this strategy and that address the Nation’s most 

pressing environmental needs. 

The strategy emphasizes coordination of activities across 

the USGS mission areas pursuant to these goals. Ecosystem 

science is inherently interdisciplinary and requires a broad 

perspective that incorporates the biological and physical sciences, climate science, information technology, and scientific 

capacity in mission areas across the Bureau. With its emphasis 

on coordination, this strategy can provide a critical underpinning for integrated science efforts with scientists from multiple 

mission areas of the USGS working together. Of course, the 

USGS will continue to conduct both discipline-specific and 

interdisciplinary investigations, and both will continue to be 

vital parts of the ecosystem science portfolio. 

Finally, the strategy stresses the importance of coordination with other Federal agencies and organizations in the 

natural resources community. The USGS collaborates with 

resource agencies in the DOI and other organizations throughout the world to meet societal needs for species and ecosystem 

management. Working with these agencies and organizations, the USGS will play a key role over the next decade in 

advancing the scientific foundation for sustaining the natural resources that diverse, productive, resilient ecosystems 

provide.
Introduction 3

Ecosystem science is the study of systems of organisms interacting with their environment and the consequences of natural and human-induced change on those systems.

Introduction

Why Does the Nation Need Ecosystem Science?

The Nation’s social and economic development hinges 

on healthy ecosystems that support living things and natural 

processes. Ecosystems produce food and fiber, sequester carbon, purify water, detoxify pollutants, sustain and retain soil, 

pollinate crops, and dampen the destructive forces of coastal 

storms and other natural disasters (President’s Council on Science and Technology, 2011). In 1997, the global value of these 

services was estimated between $16 and $54 trillion (Costanza 

and others, 1997). To ensure human health and safety and 

sustain a vibrant economy for present and future generations, 

the USGS must provide the credible, unbiased, and relevant 

science information that resource managers need to maintain 

and restore the health of the Nation’s ecosystems in what is 

undeniably a fast-changing world. The pace of human population growth and environmental change is far-reaching and 

unprecedented, affecting water availability and quality, distribution and extinction rates for plants and animals, the stability 

of marine and terrestrial ecosystems, rates and magnitudes of 

disturbances, and cycling of life-sustaining elements (carbon, 

nitrogen, phosphorus). Human actions have placed three of 

Earth’s life-support processes—biodiversity, climate, and 

the nitrogen cycle (Rockstrom and others, 2009)—beyond 

the operating range judged safe for humanity (Vitousek and 

others, 1997). In the future, environmental changes and their 

impacts are expected to accelerate and interact with sources of 

natural variability to produce unknown outcomes. 

Land and resource managers are facing decisions of 

increasing complexity and urgency to conserve biological 

diversity, restore and rehabilitate damaged ecosystems, adapt 

to climate change, resolve conflicts of resource allocation, and 

assess the changing condition of living resources and their 

habitats. This document provides a strategy for USGS ecosystem science that will better enable society to understand how 

and why ecosystems change, to predict and forecast future 

changes, and to guide actions that restore and sustain ecosystems and their life-support functions. 

What is Ecosystem Science?

The science we envision encompasses studies of organisms and their environments at scales from genes to populations to biomes. It requires studies across a spectrum of 

spatial scales to better understand how local-scale features of 

landscapes (such as water diversions) interact with global- and 

continental-scale processes (such as climate oscillations) to 

drive changes in biological communities, ecosystem processes, 

and social change. Ecosystem science also includes investigations across temporal scales from very short term to millennial 

(geologic). Exploration of how humans function as integral 

parts of ecosystems and how they act as drivers of ecosystem 

change is an important component of the science portfolio. 

The motivation for USGS ecosystem science is to understand complex systems of living and nonliving components 

and their interactions and to apply that understanding to better 

support the management of the Nation’s natural resources. 

Over the next decade, ecosystem science will be challenged 

to integrate system responses to climate variability and other 

drivers of ecosystem change such as landscape alterations, 

introductions of nonnative species, pollutant discharges, and 

effects of water and energy development. Effective ecosystem 

management requires the integration of scientific discovery 

and application to solve problems that will increasingly affect 

the welfare of American citizens and global populations. 

Because humans are a substantial and growing force of ecosystem change, the integration of natural and social sciences 

will be essential for effective application of ecosystem science. 

This strategy proposes interdisciplinary and integrated 

science to understand how multiple forces interact to bring 

about ecological changes. The USGS will apply a range of 

scientific approaches including experimentation, process 

The removal of the Glines Canyon Dam in Olympic 

National Park, and the Elwha Dam downstream, is the 

largest dam-removal project in the United States. The 

restoration of the river will enable once-productive 

native salmon runs to return, restoring the vital marinederived nutrients and food sources for terrestrial and 

aquatic communities in the watershed. In cooperation 

with local, State, Federal, and tribal partners, the USGS 

is developing new ecological information on fish and 

wildlife populations, vegetation patterns and dynamics, 

sediment transport and storage in the reservoirs, river 

channel and coastal evolution, hydrological processes, 

coastal habitats, and beach erosion. Understanding 

changes to river and coastal habitats, fate of sediment, 

and salmon recolonization in the upper watershed 

provides critical information for restoration of the Elwha 

River and comparable dam removal projects across the 

country.

Elwha River Dam Removal
4 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

measurements, remote sensing, analyses of the geologic 

record, long-term observations, natural history studies, and 

modeling to develop and test hypotheses about ecosystem 

functions and management. The ultimate goal is to inform 

policy and guide sustainable use while reducing uncertainty 

about the future.

Roles of Scientific Discovery and Application

USGS ecosystem science is an integrated effort of discovering ecosystem function and change and then applying 

these discoveries to inform the increasingly complex decisions faced by policy-makers and resource managers (fig. 1). 

Science produces new knowledge that is available for application to address problems of social importance. In turn, the process of applying knowledge to address problems can highlight 

additional science needs, which can help to focus scientific 

investigations to discover yet more new knowledge (fig. 1A). 

The framework for the relationship between science and 

application shown in figure 1A has proven to be successful 

for many decades (Stokes, 1997). However, as society moves 

well into the 21st century, this framework is gradually being 

supplanted by an enhanced relationship between discovery 

and application, in which new knowledge is seen as originating from the application of existing knowledge by practitioners, as well as from basic and applied research conducted by 

scientists. Thus, learning not only can inform but also can be 

informed by resource management, with “application” itself 

becoming a way to discover new knowledge along with a 

more traditional science approach to discovery. Both forms of 

investigation can be recognized as part of the discovery process, with discovery and application seen as overlapping rather 

than separate activities (fig. 1B). The overlap corresponds to 

simultaneous application of knowledge and discovery of new 

knowledge, wherein applications (for example, science-based 

interventions) are used to pursue management goals as well as 

obtain new knowledge.

Examples of applications-based learning are especially 

prevalent in investigations of ecological systems. An example 

of the use of interventions to both manage and learn is the 

management of nonnative species, in which different interventions are used in the field to simultaneously control invasives 

and understand the mechanisms of their establishment and 

spread. Other examples include (1) management of grazing 

lands, in which different pasturing strategies simultaneously 

provide grazing benefits and determine the conditions for 

sustainable pastoral landscapes and (2) the regulation of fish 

and wildlife harvests, in which harvest strategies are implemented, their consequences are tracked, and the data are used 

to improve understanding about population ecology. In these, 

and many other instances, management actions taken by practitioners offer opportunities to advance knowledge about how 

ecosystems respond to change.

Engagement of people who live and work on landscapes 

offers novel opportunities for learning through application. 

Native peoples, farmers, commercial fishermen, loggers, and 

others who make a living from the land are practitioners of 

ecosystem management. As such, they can provide distinct 

perspectives on how ecosystems function as working landscapes. The insights of local people can be used to focus 

investigations, develop and constrain hypotheses, and, in some 

cases, provide observations and interpretations that would 

otherwise not be available to scientists and managers. 

Species Recovery in the Missouri River 

Basin

Along the Missouri River, reservoir management, channelization, and bank stabilization have been associated 

with declines of three endangered species, the pallid 

sturgeon, interior least tern, and piping plover. Since 

1990, the USGS has been working collaboratively with 

conservation agencies to understand these species and 

link and quantify population responses to management 

and restoration actions. For the pallid sturgeon, this has 

required investigation of food-web productivity and energetic requirements, larval dispersal, and meta-population 

dynamics in reproductive ecology of the species. USGS 

scientists are actively engaged with stakeholders and 

managers who rely on the USGS to provide and interpret 

relevant, credible, unbiased, and timely interdisciplinary 

information on the river ecosystem and species and to 

apply this information in structured decision processes.

Northern latitude lakes are drying in concert with 

climate warming. These lakes provide substantial and 

essential ecosystem services that range from national 

waterfowl production to global carbon storage. This 

ongoing interdisciplinary project relies on collaborations among the science themes of Ecosystems, 

Climate and Land-Use Change, and Water to address 

the following research questions: How variable are the 

rates and magnitudes of change in lake surface area in 

National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska? What landscape 

characteristics are associated with these changes? 

What fine-scale mechanisms are affecting lake area 

change? What lake characteristics affect species richness and diversity of biological communities associated 

with lakes? What are the projected effects of continued 

lake drying on biodiversity in National Wildlife Refuges 

in Alaska? How can projected climate-related trends 

in biodiversity be used to enhance the management of 

these refuges?

Lake Drying in Alaska
Introduction 5

Figure 1. Diagram showing ecosystem science builds on the interaction between new knowledge from scientific discovery and 

applications of that knowledge.

The framework described here extends the context for 

scientific investigation to include science that targets specific 

applications, science that is guided by needs identified through 

applications, and science that is generated by the process 

of science application itself. It ties the USGS more closely 

and effectively to the DOI management agencies and other 

partners by encouraging an active engagement of scientists 

and managers in scientific discovery and its application to real 

problems. The framework promotes an enhanced relevance 

of USGS science to the partners who use and ultimately must 

support it. 

Building on USGS Foundations and Strengths

The USGS is known for its multidisciplinary expertise 

and comprehensive, integrative research. In what follows, we 

describe some agency strengths that provide a foundation for 

moving ecosystem science forward over the next decade.

Holistic, Cross-Scale Science Capabilities

The Bureau’s mission is to conduct science that supports 

decision-making for the benefit of society. The USGS conducts scientific investigations across a variety of administrative, geographic, and ecological scales in cooperation with 

many research and management partners. Because the USGS 

does not have jurisdictional boundaries or regulatory authorities, our science can be conducted across local, State, tribal, 

regional, and national jurisdictions. This breadth allows for the 

comprehensive investigation of ecosystem components and 

their interactions. The interdisciplinary capability of the USGS 

workforce can be utilized for addressing complex ecological 

problems.

Discovery

Understanding ecosystem structure and 

function

Understanding driver-response linkages 

in ecosystems

Application

Use of ecosystem services to guide 

management

Science-based ecosystem restoration

Implementation of management strategy 

based on science

Discovery Application

Discovery

through

applications

New knowledge

New knowledge

New needs

New needs

A

B
6 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

Monitoring, Assessment, and Modeling

The USGS supports regional and nationwide monitoring 

of key indicators of the environmental health of terrestrial, 

freshwater, and marine habitats, along with assessments of the 

abundance and distribution of biota, invasive species, wildlife 

disease, and other ecological characteristics. USGS data holdings and observation networks are unparalleled and vital for 

understanding the status and trends and health of our Nation’s 

ecosystems and natural resources. Many of these datasets 

include decades-long records of observations with corresponding GIS data layers, collected under strict standards of quality 

assurance and quality control. USGS scientists are widely 

recognized as leaders in developing methods for estimating 

ecological attributes from monitoring data. Such estimates can 

be used in forecasting models and in discriminating among 

competing models of system dynamics. This combination 

of monitoring programs, knowledge of inference methods, 

and modeling capability is truly unique and distinguishes the 

USGS from other agencies and groups.

Ecological history will be indispensable in meeting 

the environmental challenges of the coming decades. 

We can’t know where we are, or where we’re going, 

without knowing where we’ve been. (S.T. Jackson, 

2007)

Interdisciplinary Science

The USGS includes biologists, hydrologists, geologists, 

geographers, social scientists, and many other specialists who 

collaborate to understand the interactions among the biological, physical, chemical, and social components of ecosystems. 

USGS research ranges across multiple spatial scales, from 

the genes of individual species to biomes and oceans. The 

research also ranges across temporal scales, from seconds to 

geologic epochs. The broad array of disciplinary expertise in 

the USGS allows the agency to examine ecosystem responses 

to large-scale and long-term drivers, by both hindcasting and 

forecasting beyond the scientific records of the 19th–21st centuries. These capabilities contribute to improved understanding of system responses to environmental forces that may act 

on decadal to millennial timeframes. Long-term data, linked 

to the understanding derived from recent studies of living 

systems, provide the basis for forecasting human-induced and 

natural change into the next century. The USGS is a leader 

in investigating and mapping ecosystem changes that have 

occurred throughout the Earth’s history. 

Science Organization of USGS

The USGS mission areas include a focus on key 

ecosystem processes that promotes the incorporation of 

broad-ranging expertise into interdisciplinary ecosystem 

investigations. Thus, ecosystems are linked to climatic, 

land-use, and hydrological patterns. Natural hazards such 

as flooding and fire drive ecosystem change, and changes 

within ecosystems in turn can affect the impact and scope of 

natural disasters. For example, loss of vegetation can lead to 

landslides or greater impacts from coastal storm surges and 

tsunamis; flood hazard zonation can reduce flood damages 

while increasing biodiversity of floodplains; and fuel buildup 

and treatments can amplify or mitigate wildfire intensity. The 

extraction of energy and mineral resources may degrade ecosystems, while biogeochemical cycling within ecosystems can 

create and alter energy and mineral resources. Environmental 

health is influenced by the physical and biological quality of 

the environment, which can include contaminants, toxicants, 

and pathogens that result in disease in wildlife and humans 

and alter the structure and functioning of ecosystems. USGS 

core science systems provide the tools and technologies for 

characterizing the human dimensions and social drivers of 

ecosystem science and for observing, analyzing, and utilizing GIS to visualize ecosystem status and change. Each of 

the mission areas in the USGS can play a critical role in the 

Bureau’s strategy for ecosystem science. 

Building on USGS Partnerships

USGS ecosystem science can build on the Bureau’s 

ongoing collaborations and partnerships to leverage science 

resources and to support partner agency information needs. 

USGS science centers and cooperative research units are 

broadly distributed across the country, and many are colocated with university or other collaborators. This geographic 

structure facilitates the ability of USGS scientists to work in 

diverse ecosystems with other local, territorial, State, tribal, 

Federal1, and non-governmental organizational partners. Collaborative efforts often include USGS centers and sister agencies within the DOI. Cooperative ventures such as the DOI 

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, Cooperative Research 

Units, Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units, and National 

Climate Science Centers that promote ecosystem-based adaptive management are anticipated to grow. In addition, the 

USGS will need to collaborate closely with resource agencies 

in the DOI to address their needs for species and ecosystem 

1

Primary USGS federal partners include Department of the Interior Bureaus 

(U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian 

Affairs, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation) as well as the 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, National Institute of Health, and National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration.
Ecosystem Science Goals 7

The Colorado River is one of the most highly regulated 

and heavily used river systems in the world. Two principal reservoirs, Lakes Powell and Mead, along with 

49 other large reservoirs, store and release water for 

more than 30 million people who depend on Colorado 

River water and the ecosystem services the river provides. USGS scientists are working with managers and 

stakeholders to conduct river and riparian monitoring 

and experimentation of hydrological flows to evaluate 

physical, biological, and cultural responses to different management techniques. The resulting findings 

are being used to inform management decisions about 

water releases and ecosystem management.

Colorado River Management

management. One way to do this is through the establishment 

of a USGS science forum that works closely with our DOI 

partners (see first proposed action, p. 20).

The USGS will need to coordinate closely with other 

mission areas, agencies, and organizations in the science 

community to determine where USGS efforts can provide 

added value to existing research efforts and identify promising 

new directions related to the goals and approaches outlined 

in this strategy. In an era of declining budgets it will be more 

important than ever for the USGS to develop complementary 

research approaches that build on the research strengths of 

other agencies, universities, and non-governmental research 

organizations. Some examples of existing USGS collaborations with other science agencies include the Priority Ecosystems Science initiatives that are highlighted throughout 

the strategy. Other examples of USGS contributions to 

hypothesis-driven, integrated research and monitoring include 

the National Ecological Observatory Network, Critical 

Zone Observatories, the Consortium of Universities for the 

Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences, and the Long Term 

Ecological Research Network. As the USGS moves toward 

implementation of this strategy, additional communication and 

research forums will be necessary to ensure that the USGS 

works with our partners to address the most pressing ecosystem science needs of the Nation.

Ecosystem Science Goals

Overview

In the next 10 years, the population of the United States will grow 

by as many as 22 million people 

(U.S. Census Bureau, 2001). Over 

50 percent of U.S. citizens reside 

in coastal watershed counties that 

comprise only 17 percent of U.S. 

land area, and the trend of migration 

to the coasts and warmer regions is 

expected to continue. The country 

shares extensive borders with Canada and Mexico, where cross-border 

issues in resource use will continue 

to draw attention (for example 

see U.S.–Mexico highlight box 

on p. 18). Pressures on ecosystem 

resources will vary widely across 

the landscape. The demand for new 

energy will increase by 20 percent 

beyond the current demand (National 

Energy Policy Development Group, 

2001), and basic services such as clean water and sustainable food supplies will have to increase to meet the needs of 

an increasing human population. Climate change likely will 

alter the geographic distribution of species, test the capacity of 

plants and animals to adapt, increase the spread of disease, and 

alter the duration and intensity of storms and drought (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). 

These natural and human-induced changes will lead to 

tradeoffs between increasing use of natural resources and 

long-term sustainability. Society needs new insight into ecosystems and new ways to integrate science into the process of 

making decisions about these ecosystems. The need to make 

smart choices involving stewardship, human well-being, and 

prosperity has never been more urgent. Resource management 

issues of broad importance to society provide the context for 

the goals and challenges presented in this plan. These crosscutting priority societal issues include the following: 

Priority 

Societal

Issues

Strategic

Approaches

Goals and

Challenges

Proposed

Actions
8 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

• Recovery and management of threatened and endangered species;

• Detection and control of invasive species, pathogens, 

and wildlife disease;

• Evaluation of tradeoffs between ecological and economic uses of land and water;

• Adaptation to and mitigation of ecological effects of 

climate change, sea-level rise, nitrogen deposition, and 

the acidification of soils, freshwaters, and oceans;

• Design of strategies for sustaining and restoring ecosystem functions and services of resilient landscapes 

and seascapes;

• Identification of strategies to mitigate the harmful 

effects of contaminants and pollutants on vital ecosystem processes and human health. 

These issues transcend the development of any strategic 

plan in that they are long-standing, increasing in importance, 

and broadly recognized as influencing ecosystems and the services they provide to society. As such, they provide the context 

for framing this science strategy and its goals and challenges. 

A common theme that emerges from the priority societal 

issues is a general sense of urgency in expanding our understanding of ecosystem processes. With increasing human 

demands on natural resources, the Nation needs to take bold 

steps to move ecosystem science and management forward. 

At its most fundamental level, scientific understanding of 

ecosystems, particularly understanding of ecosystem structure, function, and processes, is incomplete and will need to 

be expanded. The need to understand how ecosystems work, 

how they vary over space and time, and how physical and 

ecological processes influence ecosystem services, biodiversity, threatened and endangered species, and other ecosystem 

attributes that society values is fundamental. 

At the same time, the Nation is faced with the challenge 

of unprecedented ecosystem changes driven by a variety 

of sources, including climate change, increasing demand 

for energy, food, and water, and biological invasives. To 

anticipate and predict the potential changes that may occur 

to ecosystems, it is important to advance understanding of 

how drivers influence ecosystem change. For example, the 

sustainability of future water supplies for ecosystems will be 

influenced by climate and human use, and a key need will be 

to predict the consequences of actions to increase water supplies for society while accounting for the effects on aquatic 

ecosystems. 

The services that ecosystems provide to society include 

clean water and air, healthy forests, rangelands, and croplands, and diverse plant and animal communities that enhance 

the environment and support economic, social, and cultural 

systems. Although ecologists understand the benefits of some 

ecosystem outputs, there is a need to expand understanding 

of the services that ecosystems provide to society. Key questions are as follows: What services do different ecosystems 

provide? How do they interact with one another? Are there 

critical thresholds that, when reached, result in the decline 

or possible elimination of those services? How can decisionmakers weigh tradeoffs among the various services to make 

the best informed decisions?

Managing natural resources for ecosystem services and 

tradeoffs is increasingly difficult given the multiple needs 

and priorities of society at local to national levels. As the 

complexity of decision-making increases, so does the need 

to develop tools, technologies, and capacities to inform 

decision-making about ecosystems. Over the past 20 years, 

new satellite and mapping technologies, the evolution of geographic mapping systems, and new technologies to describe 

the genetic makeup of organisms have emerged. Telephones 

have evolved from simple communication devices into tools 

that can instantly communicate scientific information through 

social media and applications. The USGS must find ways to 

use these technologies to assess the ecological consequences 

of decisions, particularly given the uncertainty of future 

climate and land-use changes. What tools can be developed 

to help managers better support their decisions with the right 

information at the right time? What new technologies will be 

needed to examine ecosystem vulnerability, threshold identification, and other ecosystem attributes? The emergence of new 

tools and approaches that allow ecologists to look at broad 

landscapes and variability at multiple scales will provide new 

capabilities in USGS scientific investigations.

Finally, one of the basic strengths of ecosystem science 

in the USGS has been our connection with resource management agencies and our ability to work with land managers in 

addressing their needs. Agency needs will include large-scale 

as well as site-specific studies to help a refuge, park, or district 

The management of waterfowl harvests for some 

populations in North America has been based on an 

adaptive management framework since 1995. The 

resource management problem is large in geographic 

scale, number and abundances of managed species, 

and size and diversity of the stakeholder community, 

which includes multiple Federal, State, and Provincial 

management agencies as well as non-governmental 

hunting and conservation organizations. The central 

tradeoff is between the legal mandate to maintain 

healthy migratory bird populations and the secondary 

objective of permitting sport hunting. USGS scientists 

were instrumental in developing a science-based adaptive approach to hunting regulations for the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service. Its adoption has led to a reduction 

of uncertainty about population responses to hunting 

and has resulted in transparent and defensible hunting 

regulations for nearly 20 years. 

Waterfowl Harvest
Ecosystem Science Goals 9

manager with a specific issue. For example, priority ecosystem 

studies in the Everglades, Puget Sound, Colorado River, Chesapeake Bay, and San Francisco Bay are addressing spatially 

large and complex issues related to water management and 

ecosystem restoration, while polar bear studies in the Arctic 

and grizzly bear studies in Yellowstone and Glacier National 

Parks focus on key species in complex environments. As the 

complexity of these problems grows, the USGS will need to 

work with our conservation partners to provide the science 

needed to enhance strategies for management, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems. An important growth 

area for the USGS and other natural resource agencies alike is 

the application of adaptive management (Williams and others, 

2007; Williams and Brown, 2012) to learn about the effects 

of management actions while exploiting that learning to make 

better decisions in the future. The science provided by the 

USGS will help managers better understand the consequences 

of their decisions and in turn guide subsequent management 

and future research.

The goals and challenges in this strategy were developed 

to be complementary and interdependent, rather than independent, stand-alone research needs. Collectively, they emphasize 

ecosystem science that links discovery with application and 

promotes enhanced research and management partnerships 

(fig. 1B). Below, we attempt to convey both urgency and 

optimism: urgency in providing science to assist resourcemanagement agencies in finding the right balance between 

natural resource conservation and economic development and 

optimism that the Nation has the capacity in its science and 

institutions to address and resolve these complex environmental issues. 

Goal 1: Improve Understanding of Ecosystem 

Structure, Function, and Processes

Justification

Along with the production and 

use of energy, minerals, water, food, 

and fiber, the protection and sustainability of natural resources and their 

ecosystems is a national priority. 

Scientific and social information, and 

particularly inventory and monitoring 

information, are essential for developing and implementing policies to meet 

these priorities (Fleishman and others, 

2011). However, the current pace of 

scientific discoveries, including the 

acquisition of basic monitoring data, 

is insufficient to adequately inform 

U.S. resource management policy 

in the next decade (Fleishman and 

others, 2011). The rapid changes now 

taking place in all ecosystems make it 

imperative to understand ecosystem 

structure, function, and processes and 

how ecosystems directly or indirectly 

support human populations and security of the country. Understanding of the condition and trends of ecosystems benefits 

from both discipline-based and multidisciplinary science, 

along with collaboration with resource managers and policymakers. Although much has been learned, current knowledge 

often is insufficient to resolve managers’ questions about the 

causes and consequences of change, the ability of species to 

adapt to ecosystem change, how ecosystem resiliency can be 

maintained, or how degraded ecosystems can be restored. 

Priority 

Societal

Issues

Strategic

Approaches

Goals and

Challenges

Proposed

Actions

Asian carps, especially bighead and silver carp, are 

aggressive, invasive fish that have become abundant 

throughout much of the Mississippi River basin. These 

species now threaten to invade the Great Lakes, potentially putting a $7 billion per year commercial fishery 

resource at risk. In coordination with partners, the USGS 

is assessing habitats of the lakes and rivers of the Great 

Lakes region for their capacities to support Asian carps 

and developing information on control strategies. Related 

studies also include understanding their reproductive 

biology and food requirements; quantifying early lifestage habitat needs; using environmental DNA as a new 

monitoring tool; modeling population dynamics; developing toxicants and pheromone attractants and repellents; 

and using acoustic cannons as barriers to prevent carp 

advancement. 

Invasion of Asian Carps in the Great Lakes
10 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

Major Challenges

• Accelerate learning about how ecosystems and their 

components (species, populations, communities, and 

habitats) are organized spatially, how changes in land 

use and biogeochemical processes influence ecosystem functions, and how spatial organization influences 

ecosystem and landscape processes.

• Identify and map current species distributions through 

sustained monitoring and biogeographic modeling. 

• Enhance knowledge of how ecosystems and their components function, how they have varied over time, and 

how that variability affects ecosystem functions and 

the communities they support.

• Identify key environmental factors that regulate 

biological, physical, and chemical processes and their 

interactions, including rates and pathways of energy 

transfer, nutrient dynamics, gene flow, and ecosystem 

change.

• Advance knowledge of how ecosystem processes 

influence attributes such as biodiversity, sustainability, 

resilience, and species-level carrying capacity. 

• Enhance understanding of how ecosystem attributes 

respond to interacting effects of system variability, 

operating at multiple spatial and temporal scales.

• Identify nonlinear thresholds that influence biological 

and ecological structure and function.

Goal 2: Advance Understanding of How Drivers 

Influence Ecosystem Change

Justification

Ecosystems are defined in part by the climatic, geologic, 

biogeographic, and cultural context in which they exist. A key 

scientific challenge is to recognize patterns and consequences 

of change in these external drivers. Understanding their influences on ecosystem processes, such as the flow of energy, 

the flux of nutrients, and interrelationships among species, is 

fundamental to determining ecosystem resilience and sustainability in the face of future changes. Ecosystem management 

decisions often depend on discrimination of natural from 

anthropogenic causes of ecosystem change, and determination 

of causality is essential to both understanding and managing 

ecosystem change. 

Drivers operate across many scales, and the magnitude, direction, complexity of response, and rate of change 

vary widely from one ecosystem to another. These factors 

ultimately influence processes such as population dynamics, speciation, succession, and extinction, which in turn 

influence the value of services provided by the ecosystem. 

Local-scale drivers, such as construction of a dam, application of prescribed fire, restoration of a wetland, or introduction of nonnative species, often affect ecosystem change over 

localized areas. Cross-scale drivers can have an immediate 

effect on local environments while also affecting ecosystems 

over broader areas and periods. For example, the cumulative 

effects of urbanization, agricultural land use, carbon dioxide 

emissions, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and extraction 

of energy resources can influence ecosystem dynamics locally 

and over very large areas (Rice and Herman, 2010). Understanding the interrelationships within and among drivers, the 

dynamic responses of components of ecosystems, and the 

feedback loops among the different levels of organization is 

essential for informed management of ecosystems and the 

services they provide. 

Major Challenges

• Identify and quantify the important drivers of ecosystem change.

• Determine the feedback mechanisms between the 

influence of drivers on ecosystems and the influence of 

ecosystems on drivers. 

• Understand the interaction and cumulative effects of 

multiple drivers, acting over different scales, on ecosystem change. 

• Investigate potential future changes in drivers and forecast how species and ecosystems are likely to respond.

• Quantify the uncertainties in forecasting change in 

drivers and ecosystem trajectories.

Stressors to the Sacramento-San Joaquin 

Delta

California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is a 

massively transformed landscape, hub of the State’s 

water-delivery system, and habitat for 14 imperiled 

species of fish. Resource managers have struggled to 

identify the stressors responsible for population collapses of these species. USGS studies provide compelling 

evidence that loss of native species is the result of many 

stressors, including exotic species, contaminants, water 

exports, habitat fragmentation, and the damming of rivers. 

The Department of Interior is contributing to design and 

implementation of an ambitious Bay Delta Conservation 

Plan to ensure “a sustainable water supply for California 

and a healthy Delta ecosystem.” The plan is based on the 

principle that recovery of native biota requires actions to 

reduce impairments by all the stressors identified in the 

USGS studies.
Ecosystem Science Goals 11

Goal 3: Improve Understanding of the Services 

That Ecosystems Provide to Society

Justification

Ecosystems and the biodiversity they embody are the 

environmental capital on which human well-being depends, 

and this capital is the source of ecosystem services. Here, the 

term ecosystem services refers to a wide range of benefits that 

people obtain from ecosystems, including soil fertility and 

water-holding capacity, pollination of plants, production of 

fish, game, and natural resources, and recreational, aesthetic, 

and existence values from unspoiled landscapes. Recognition 

of ecosystem services as valuable natural assets that sustain 

human well-being has become widespread in scientific and 

policy communities (Daily and Matson, 2008; Carpenter 

and others, 2009), but the value of these services is often not 

incorporated into management decisions (Larigauderie and 

Mooney, 2010; Sukhdev and others, 2010). In the absence of 

their recognition and valuation, important ecosystem services 

may be unexpectedly degraded, with significant monetary and 

nonmonetary costs to society. 

In this rapidly growing field of research, the USGS needs 

to play a critical role in providing information to managers 

and stakeholders who are facing complex real-world decisions that require evaluation of tradeoffs under a range of 

future scenarios. The USGS and other Federal agencies need 

to increase understanding of the production of ecosystem 

services and enhance capabilities for their valuation with 

the intent of incorporating ecosystem services into planning 

and management decisions. USGS research will complement efforts by other governmental, non-governmental, and 

academic organizations to understand and predict the potential 

impacts of external drivers on biodiversity and other important 

components of our Nation’s natural wealth.

Major Challenges

• Enhance methods to identify, measure, and value ecosystem services. 

• Understand the biophysical processes necessary for 

ecosystems to provide services of value to humans, 

including energy flows and nutrient cycling.

• Explain how external drivers such as climate change, 

land use, and resource use—including energy 

development, mineral extraction, and agriculture—

affect the capacity of ecosystems to continue to provide services.

• Assess the interrelationships among multiple ecosystem services.

• Evaluate critical thresholds at which ecosystem change 

can result in large reductions in the production of 

services.

Valuing Ecosystem and Economic Services 

Across Land-Use Scenarios in the Prairie 

Potholes

The USGS is collaborating with Colorado State University 

to assess the environmental and economic tradeoffs 

under different land-use scenarios over a 20-year time 

period in the Prairie Pothole Region of North and South 

Dakota. The investigation of ecosystem services has 

focused on the biophysical and economic values for 

carbon sequestration, reduction in sedimentation, and 

waterfowl production in native prairie grasslands, lands 

enrolled in the Conservation Reserve and Wetlands 

Reserve Programs, and cropland. By quantifying ecosystem and economic tradeoffs of future land-use scenarios, 

this study and future USGS research can help policy-makers and natural resource managers make more informed, 

efficient, and defensible decisions.
12 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

There is clear value in aligning research in the natural and social sciences more closely with the information needs of 

decision- makers. (Rudd and others, 2011)

Goal 4: Develop Tools, Technologies, and 

Capacities to Inform Decision-Making About 

Ecosystems

Justification

Resource managers are facing complex decisions that 

require new ways to collect, analyze, and use scientific data. 

At the same time, theoretical and technological innovations 

are providing new opportunities to connect science and its 

application in natural resource management. Rapid advances 

in remote sensing, development of new GIS tools, genetics 

and genomics, data management and display, and other new 

technologies offer USGS scientists new ways to collect, manage, analyze, and display data. Enhanced tools and technologies are required to address the next generation of information 

management and decision-support systems for ecosystembased, adaptive resource management for restoration, mitigation, and adaptation. 

Given the rapid changes in both technology and the 

drivers that affect ecosystems, the USGS must increase its 

competency to understand, model, map, and forecast the 

spatial and temporal dynamics of ecosystem drivers and ecosystem responses to management decisions. Strong collaborations within the agency and with partners will be required to 

integrate knowledge of changing ecosystem conditions and 

the consequences of these changes into decisions involving 

terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems. Efforts under this 

goal have the potential to change the very nature of ecosystem science in ways that can extend the scope, efficiency, and 

effectiveness of ecosystem investigations. 

Major Challenges

• Develop tools, technologies, and standards to observe, 

map, analyze, and model current and future dynamics 

of populations and ecosystems.

• Refine methods such as adaptive management and 

structured decision-making to integrate social and ecological sciences into management decisions.

• Improve methods to analyze and use multiscale data 

from ecosystem observation networks to project the 

effects of changes in the drivers of natural resource 

systems.

• Develop and test decision processes that account for 

uncertainty in decision science applied to support for 

environmental policy and management.

• Increase the capacity of the USGS and partners to fill 

existing data gaps and develop emerging scientific 

methods and tools to support decisions. 

An essential component of the Greater Everglades 

Ecosystem Restoration is to restore more natural patterns of freshwater flow through south Florida wetlands 

and into the estuaries. A critical question for the U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers, National Park Service, U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agency managers responsible for setting targets and performance 

measures is how to determine historical freshwater volume. Paleoanalyses of biotic remains in shallow cores 

collected throughout south Florida have established 

changes to the hydrologic conditions over the last few 

centuries. The paleoecologic results were used to 

hindcast historical stage and flow in the wetlands, and 

salinity in the estuaries. USGS research in collaboration 

with our partners has estimated that the Everglades, 

prior to canal construction, contained approximately 

2.5 times more freshwater flow than the current regime. 

These projections are being used to set targets and 

performance measures for restoration of the Greater 

Everglades Ecosystem. 

Everglades Restoration
Ecosystem Science Goals 13

Goal 5: Apply Science to Enhance Strategies for 

Management, Conservation, and Restoration of 

Ecosystems

Justification

As managers and policy-makers are confronted by 

unprecedented challenges to protect and manage resources 

in the face of multiple, often conflicting demands, the need 

for effective collaboration between managers and scientists 

has never been greater. Goal 5 focuses on the integration of 

science directly into the management framework, with scientists working closely with managers to ensure that science 

informs policy and management and leads to decisions that 

are defensible, transparent, and objective driven. Conversely, 

managers will be encouraged to work closely with scientists 

to ensure that management helps to focus science activities, 

leading to relevant and useful scientific results. Ecosystems 

respond to management decisions and it is important to use 

these responses as learning opportunities to reduce uncertainty 

for future decisions. The integration of scientific discovery 

and application can be useful at different scales and in different decision environments. It is the full integration of science 

and management that distinguishes the approach described 

here from past efforts to simply supply information. The new 

emphasis will be on science and information that are of most 

use to managers and their decision-making.

Of special importance is engagement of stakeholders 

throughout the entire research process, beginning with problem identification, agreement on objectives, development of 

science-based models, and examination of the consequences of 

different management actions. A partner-based approach that 

accounts for scientific knowledge as well as uncertainty holds 

promise for improving decisions by DOI and other resource 

managers. More generally, such an approach can help transform the way science is integrated in wildlife management, 

conservation biology, and other natural resource management 

disciplines. The USGS can play an important role in helping 

to integrate human dimensions and technical assessments in 

resource decision-making.

Major Challenges

• Advance the application of science to address complex 

resource management problems by integrating scientific discovery and adaptive resource management 

frameworks.

• Enhance the incorporation of stakeholder values and 

the transfer of scientific knowledge into the public 

domain through full engagement of stakeholders.

• Develop models along with monitoring and assessment 

programs that are designed to inform management 

decisions and assess their utility.

• Use increased knowledge of species of concern, including threatened, endangered, and invasive species, to 

clarify management objectives and decision options for 

the Nation’s trust resources.

• Use ecological and decision sciences to guide strategies 

for achieving management, conservation, mitigation, 

and restoration objectives in the face of continuing 

climate and land-use change.

• Increase USGS capacity for scientific decision support 

via training and strategic recruitment of new scientists.

The management of horseshoe crab harvest in Delaware Bay represents a large-scale decision problem 

with respect to geographic area, animal population 

sizes, and diversity of the stakeholder community. The 

key tradeoff is between the horseshoe crab fishery and 

migrating red knots, which require crab eggs in order 

to attain mass levels that enable the birds to complete 

their migration to the Arctic and successfully reproduce. The diverse stakeholder community includes the 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, State resource agencies, 

and non-governmental conservation organizations, 

with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission 

(ASMFC) designated as the legal decision-maker. An 

adaptive management program was developed by USGS 

scientists and the stakeholder community for deriving 

horseshoe crab harvest regulations and was endorsed 

in 2010 and formally adopted by the ASMFC in 2011.

Red Knots and Horseshoe Crabs 
14 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

...it is evident that the innovative and transformative science that leads to breakthroughs often happens at the intersections of disciplines. (Smithsonian Office of Policy and Analysis, May 2009)

Integrating Ecosystems Science 

Across the USGS

The goals and challenges described above represent a 

systematic framing of issues for ecosystems science. The goals 

are all mutually reinforcing, in that each is best understood in 

the context of the others. Similarly, the challenges within and 

among goals are designed to be reinforcing, each providing 

context and focus for the others. The goals and challenges in 

the strategy can be seen as synergistic concepts in a framework that integrates discovery and application of ecosystem 

science for all USGS science. Figure 2 illustrates the placement of the five goals of this strategy along a continuum 

between discovery and application, while showing the essential interaction between resource management and science that 

must occur.

The conceptual model in figure 2 illustrates linkages 

to the other USGS science mission areas. The report “Facing Tomorrow’s Challenges” (U.S. Geological Survey, 2007) 

states that ecosystem science “is itself an essential direction 

for the USGS to pursue in order to meet pressing national and 

global needs.” The report also emphasizes that “ecosystembased approaches underpin” the other mission areas, “which 

all require ecosystem perspective and tools for their execution.” The framework presented here promotes the integration 

of science across the USGS mission areas. 

The Climate and Land-Use Change Mission Area plays 

a role in ecosystem science by examining key natural and 

anthropogenic drivers that influence ecosystem change and 

feedbacks among those drivers, as they influence structure, 

function, and processes of ecosystems and their associated 

services. Science pursued under the Climate and Land-Use 

Figure 2. Diagram showing U.S. Geological Survey ecosystem science must incorporate the study of an ecosystem and the drivers 

influencing the system while fully engaging and integrating resource management in the process

Discovery

Application

Ecosystem

Biota

Climate

 Water

Geology

 Soils

Goal 5:

Enhance strategies for 

management, 

conservation & 

restoration

Goal 4:

Develop tools, 

technologies and 

capacities to inform 

decision-making

Goal 1:

Understand structure, 

function, processes

Decision analysis

Data assessment

Scenarios

Forecasting

Drivers

Climate

Land Use

Water Availability

Natural Hazards

Disturbances

Goal 2:

Understand how 

drivers influence 

ecosystem change

New questions arise

New goals & objectives

Monitoring strategies

Resource management

Goals and Objectives

Species management

Habitat alteration

Restoration, Mitigation, Adaptation

Infrastructure, Visitor usage

Goal 3:

Understand services 

ecosystems provide 

society
Integrating Ecosystems Science Across the USGS 15

Mission Area will improve understanding of the global carbon 

cycle and land-use and land-cover changes, including rates, 

causes, and consequences and will improve understanding and 

prediction of coastal response to sea-level rise and climate 

change. The Water Mission Area will predict changes in the 

quantity and quality of water resources in response to changing climate, population, land use, and management scenarios. 

Water is a fundamental component of ecosystems, a dominant 

mechanism of transporting energy, nutrients, and contaminants 

through ecosystems, and a potential driver of change. The 

Natural Hazards Mission Area will assess and guide decisions that minimize risk from hazards such as fire, volcanoes, 

and floods. An understanding of the magnitudes and frequencies of hazards that may also operate as ecosystem disturbance 

and regulating mechanisms will be provided. Ecosystem 

processes are also highly relevant to Natural Hazards science 

because they influence the impacts of disturbances. The 

Energy and Minerals Mission Area will provide accurate, 

unbiased inventories of the location, nature, and quantity of 

geologically based energy and mineral resources and conduct 

applied research needed to understand costs and benefits associated with energy and minerals development, and these costs 

include impacts on the environment. The Environmental 

Health Mission Area will identify and improve understanding of the effects of emerging contaminants and infectious 

agents in the environment. The Hazards, Energy and Minerals, and Environmental Health Mission Areas share common 

domains in the conceptual model, related to questions about 

how environmental and socio-economic drivers alter distributions of energy, materials, contaminants, water, pathogens, 

and nutrients in ecosystems, including the human dimension 

of the ecosystems. The Core Science Systems Mission Area

provides a framework for organizing information on the geology, geomorphology, and soils, along with other physical and 

biological components of an ecosystem. Core Science will 

develop methods and systems to access and integrate disparate 

biogeochemical and socio-economic datasets. Finally, all the 

USGS mission areas have the potential to link to decisionanalytic approaches and applications. These linkages will 

allow USGS scientists to examine the interactions that occur 

within and between ecosystems across spatial and temporal 

scales and the influence that ecosystems have on other earth 

processes. 

In some cases, the USGS mission areas share similar 

research goals and approaches. Close coordination and leveraging of resources among the mission areas will be required to 

effectively and efficiently address the environmental challenges that are outlined above. Where proposed activities 

overlap among the mission areas, future implementation plans 

can incorporate decisions about which mission areas will lead 

or contribute to interdisciplinary research efforts. There are 

many opportunities for such collaborations. USGS ecosystem 

science will rely on the resources, information, expertise, 

tools, and technologies from each mission area. Potential areas 

for integration and coordination among mission areas include 

the following.

Unusual springtime warming since the late 1970s, 

attributed to greenhouse gas buildup and to natural 

variability, is driving far-reaching physical and biological 

phenomena throughout the United States. USGS studies 

have documented trends in earlier breakup of stream 

and lake ice, increases in rainfall over snowfall, declining snowpack, earlier snowmelt and streamflow, more 

frequent large fires, and earlier leafing and flowering. 

These trends in seasonal timing probably are having 

cascading effects throughout managed and unmanaged 

ecosystems but are poorly understood. Monitoring of 

plant and animal phenology, and its influence on population dynamics, species interactions, and ecosystem 

fluxes and services, has not been routine or extensive 

enough to exhibit patterns in the consequences of phenological change. The USGS is leading interdisciplinary 

research focused on seasonal timing in ecosystem 

dynamics and management.

Phenology and Climate

Climate and Land-Use Change

• Evaluations of effects of past and present conditions 

and changing patterns of air and water temperatures, 

precipitation, ocean acidification, and land use.

• Assessments of rates and magnitude of past ecosystem 

change, and projections of future change.

• Understanding of impacts of various climate-change 

scenarios on ecosystem services.

• Development of models and forecasts of how organisms and populations will respond to changing climate 

and land use.

• Improvements to tools and techniques to assess 

global- to local-scale responses to climate and land-use 

change.

• Sharing of knowledge of climate, land use, and ecology to provide comprehensive, holistic understanding 

of past, current, and future ecosystem change and to 

provide decision-makers with options for mitigation 

and adaptation.

• Use of climate forecasting models to examine the 

effects of climate change on the structure and function 

of ecosystems.

• Identification of vulnerable ecosystems and patterns in 

ecosystem change that will be driven by climate and 

land-use change.
16 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

Water

• Assessment of status and trends of water quality, water 

use, and water availability and forecasting of changes 

in water supplies in response to climate change.

• Development of ecological flow science—explain and 

model how changing hydrological water cycles affect 

biological and ecological systems.

• Assessment of relationships between changes in water 

quality and quantity on the availability of other ecosystem services.

• Evaluation of strategies for sustaining the biological 

diversity and vital functions of aquatic ecosystems.

Natural Hazards

• Assessment of the frequency, magnitude, and likelihood of extreme / rare events (earthquakes, volcanic 

eruptions, tsunamis, floods, wildfires, and others), 

which act as disturbance mechanisms and drivers of 

ecosystem change, and the impact of these natural 

stressors on ecosystem processes.

• Assessment of resilience of ecosystems to natural hazards and the potential impact of natural hazards on the 

provision of ecosystem services, and development of 

a better understanding of the services that ecosystems 

provide to mitigate or reduce the effects of a hazard.

• Rapid response planning and modeling for anticipating 

threats from natural hazards and extreme events.

• Description and modeling of remediation and restoration strategies to minimize long-term impacts of 

hazards to human societies while maximizing benefits 

to ecosystems.

• Identification and prediction of hazards risks to ecosystems, and development of adaptive management strategies that account for hazard risks and uncertainties.

Energy and Minerals

• Assessment of conditions of energy and mineral 

resources, chemical concentrations, and their transformation, degradation, and flux, with coordination 

on joint efforts on the environmental consequences of 

changing conditions.

• Assessment and models of the impacts of past, present, and future mineral and fossil fuel extraction on the 

environment.

• Evaluation of resource life cycles and the impacts of 

energy and mineral development on ecosystem services and sustainability.

• Rapid responses to environmental disasters associated 

with energy and mineral extraction.

• Modeling and decision support for remediation and 

restoration strategies to reduce environmental impacts 

of energy and mineral resource extraction and use.

• Provision of mineral and contaminant information on 

abandoned mine lands for restoration of ecosystem 

services disrupted by mineral extraction.

Environmental Health

• Evaluation of past and present conditions and changing 

patterns of fish and wildlife health and the population 

dynamics of the wildlife host species.

• Assessment of occurrence and exposure pathways for 

contaminants, infectious disease transmitted by animals to humans, parasites, and microbial ecology.

• Understanding of interrelationships among contaminants and infectious agents and ecosystem services.

• Modeling of environmental health threats to fish and 

wildlife populations and humans.

• Development of models, decision support, and adaptive 

management approaches to prevent, control, and manage pathogens and infectious diseases.

Core Science Systems

• Development of new methods for synthesizing, 

integrating, mapping, and modeling data related to 

ecosystem drivers.

• Enhanced retrieval and analysis of relevant data on 

abiotic ecosystem components (for example, rainfall, 

atmospheric temperature, population demographics, 

land use, potential hazards) and the packaging of ecological information into useful products such as GIS 

maps and databases.

• Development of models and provision of spatial 

representations of the flow of ecosystem services to 

beneficiaries.

• Development of techniques and standards for habitat 

classification and biogeographic mapping.

• Development of methods to link and merge terrestrial, 

aquatic, coastal, and marine data and habitat maps.

• Access to databases to evaluate and map patterns of 

land-use and land change.

• Development of software and technology to manage 

and display ecological data.
Strategic Approaches and Outcomes: The Path Forward 17

Strategic Approaches and Outcomes: 

The Path Forward

The framework and goals 

described in this science strategy link 

science discovery and application 

and emphasize collaboration between 

science and resource management. 

Four high-level cross-cutting strategic approaches are identified here: 

(1) assess information needs for 

ecosystem science through enhanced 

partnerships; (2) promote the use of 

interdisciplinary ecosystem science; 

(3) enhance modeling and forecasting; 

and (4) support decision-making. The 

following criteria were used to identify these strategic approaches and the 

proposed actions that follow: 

• Address priority societal issues and 

fill important knowledge gaps.

• Align with administration and DOI 

bureau priorities for managing the 

Nation’s natural resources.

• Leverage partnerships with other Federal, trust, tribal, 

State, and local institutions and non-governmental 

organizations. 

• Use the core capabilities, multidisciplinary expertise, 

and data holdings of the USGS.

• Be practical, flexible, and opportunistic given the constraints of USGS staffing and budgetary resources.

• Advance the USGS Ecosystem Science Strategy and its 

five goals.

Individually and together, these strategic approaches 

and the proposed actions that follow support the science 

framework in this strategy. They promote the collaborative 

development of techniques, information, assessments, maps, 

and decision-support tools to address ecosystem management 

issues. In addition, they provide flexibility in identifying both 

the systems to be studied and the scientific approaches to be 

used. Importantly, they also are interconnected and can be 

effectively pursued simultaneously. 

Priority 

Societal

Issues

Strategic

Approaches

Goals and

Challenges

Proposed

Actions

The Santa Cruz River Watershed (SCW) is located in 

the U.S.–Mexico border region, where surface water 

is scarce during much of the year. Groundwater is the 

primary water source for industrial, agricultural, and 

domestic use in the region. The USGS is investigating 

ways to identify risks to water resources and the potential consequences to riparian ecosystems and ultimately 

human health. To understand impacts of various management scenarios on ecosystem services in the SCW, the 

USGS is developing decision-support tools that will permit 

scientists to evaluate how changes in climate and land 

use will impact ecosystem services of flood regulation, 

erosion control, and habitat provision, and determine the 

distribution of the burdens associated with these impacts. 

This U.S.–Mexico collaboration illustrates the importance 

of interdisciplinary continental-scale studies.

U.S.–Mexico Border

Strategic Approach 1. Assess Information Needs 

for Ecosystem Science Through Enhanced 

Partnerships

• Support and enhance national and regional alliances 

among resource managers and scientists.

• Develop a spatio-temporal information framework of 

ecosystem attributes to support science discovery and 

application.

• Work with partners to identify priority management 

issues for selected species (for example, threatened and 

endangered, invasive, superabundant, and indicator), 

areas, and ecosystems.

• Collaborate with partners to design, fund, and implement priority decision-driven science.

The USGS will collaborate with regionally based, multistakeholder alliances to identify and address priority management issues in key terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems. 

This strategic approach promotes existing and new collaborations within and among DOI bureaus, other Federal, State, 

and local agencies, tribal and territorial authorities, academic 

scientists, non-governmental organizations, community organizations, and foreign institutions. Enhanced coordination will 

strengthen ties within and among existing regionally based 

science/management alliances, for example the Landscape 

Conservation Cooperatives, DOI National Climate Science 

Centers, Cooperative Research Units, Cooperative Ecosystem 

Studies Units, West Coast Governors Alliance, New England 

Disciplines Management Council, USA National Phenology 

Network (see highlight box p. 15), and State/Federal/international cooperatives such as the Gulf of Mexico Alliance and 
18 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

Great Lakes Commission. New efforts would complement and 

supplement ongoing monitoring and research designs in areas 

like Chesapeake Bay, Mojave Desert, Platte River, Colorado 

River (see highlight box p. 7), Puget Sound, San Francisco 

Bay (see highlight box p. 19), and south Florida (see highlight 

box p. 12). By fully supporting these regional partnerships, 

priority ecosystem issues can be best identified and refined 

by multiple stakeholders and thus lead to more collaborative 

research and more effective application to management problems. Key geographic areas, species, and ecosystems will be 

identified where USGS contributions to research, monitoring, 

assessment, mapping, and modeling can provide important 

information on ecosystem structure, function, process, and 

change. 

This strategic approach will ensure that the USGS and its 

partners are effectively communicating, planning, and implementing science on a regional basis to address the highest 

priority information needs and resource management decisions. Collaborations to identify and address restoration issues 

and anticipate and respond rapidly and effectively to environmental disasters will be promoted. USGS scientists and DOI 

management agencies will work together to determine priority 

science needs. Engagement with stakeholders as they identify 

specific management objectives and available management 

actions will promote science that is oriented toward the consequences of actions. This science focus serves as a filter for 

hypotheses that are directly relevant to decision-making and 

leads to an effective prioritization of science needs. 

Through these interactions, funding and other resources 

will be leveraged among multiple partners. Sustained investment in a diverse portfolio of field- and laboratory-based 

ecosystem science will yield high returns in fundamental 

understanding of ecosystem dynamics through interdisciplinary collaborations, development of fundamental biological 

and ecological knowledge, and applications of system modeling and analytical frameworks. Hypothesis-based research, 

monitoring, and assessment will focus on selected taxa and 

representative ecosystems under a strategic, collaborative 

planning process, thereby optimizing investment of USGS and 

other bureau resources. These focused efforts will strengthen 

ecosystem science and increase linkages between science and 

its application in resource management decisions. 

Strategic Approach 2. Promote the Use of 

Interdisciplinary Ecosystem Science

• Encourage and support interdisciplinary ecosystem 

research among the USGS mission areas.

• Develop information from interdisciplinary processoriented research within ecosystem science in collaboration with other agencies and partners.

• Design and conduct interdisciplinary research to understand ecosystem variability across temporal and spatial 

scales that is important to management decisions.

The USGS Bureau Science Plan (U.S. Geological Survey, 

2007) emphasized that ecosystem science requires the full 

power of an integrated systems approach. Ecosystem science 

provides a context to take advantage of the multiple capabilities and strengths of all USGS mission areas to develop a more 

comprehensive understanding of coupled socio-ecological systems. The focus of this strategic approach is on finding common ground among mission areas to identify priority issues, 

leverage budgetary and intellectual resources, and collectively 

inform pending and future resource management decisions 

through improved scientific understanding.

Solutions to complex problems with coupled socioecological systems will require knowledge gained from integrated, interdisciplinary studies that span the mission areas. 

As a result of these activities, the USGS will develop ways to 

field teams of interdisciplinary scientists to address information needs of DOI agencies and other resource management 

organizations. The result will be a more holistic understanding 

of socio-ecological systems and more applicable ecosystem 

science for management, conservation, and restoration of 

ecosystems. Interdisciplinary expertise will be used to explain 

ecosystem functions, outputs, and services that are valued by 

the American people. These values will be incorporated into 

goals and challenges for decision-making that are science 

based and adaptive. A synthesis of approaches from other disciplines will produce innovations to help evaluate the benefits 

that resilient, diverse ecosystems provide to people. 

Strategic Approach 3. Enhance Modeling and 

Forecasting

• Design conceptual models of ecosystems for which 

there are pressing needs for management decisions.

• Build quantitative models to forecast ecosystem 

changes and their implications under a range of future 

scenarios, including alternative management strategies.

• Use comparisons of GIS data layers and model forecasts against observations to advance understanding 

and improve forecasting.

• Identify critical data gaps, design and implement new 

monitoring and process measurements, and use the 

resulting data to reduce forecasting uncertainties.

This strategic approach involves the implementation of 

research and monitoring to support and advance modeling, 

mapping, and forecasting of species, ecosystem services, and 

other key indicators in selected terrestrial, freshwater, and 

marine systems. Observations and research, together with 

models and forecasts, help scientists and managers understand 

environmental variability, explain vulnerabilities and risk, and 

evaluate management options. Models can help integrate disparate social, cultural, economic, and ecological data, enabling 

the evaluation of how different management options impact 

resource use and sustainability. By testing and improving the 
Strategic Approaches and Outcomes: The Path Forward 19

accuracy of models—for example, using adaptive management strategies—tradeoffs between resource use and sustainability can be better quantified for managers and stakeholders. 

Forecasts of ecosystem change from climate, land use, 

and other drivers and their impacts on ecosystems services are 

vital to managers for evaluating alternative scenarios and management options. Developing these forecasts requires knowledge of current and past ecosystem dynamics, the impacts of 

external drivers and stressors, and potential synergistic and 

cumulative effects. A key focus of modeling and forecasting 

will be to facilitate decision-making to meet objectives while 

reducing uncertainty and thereby improving future decisions. 

Model-based forecasts can be compared against new monitoring data to refine understanding of model parameters and processes, which in turn can be incorporated into decision-making 

in the form of better model forecasts. 

These activities will provide systematic analyses of past, 

present, and future ecosystem dynamics in key ecosystems. 

Decision-makers will benefit from predictive models of future 

ecosystem conditions under various scenarios of changing 

climate, water use, and land use. Ecosystem modeling and 

forecasting will lead to quantitative decision-support tools, 

with important benefits in prioritizing investments in restoration strategies and options for mitigation, adaptation, and conservation. Modeling and forecasting techniques are common 

to all USGS mission areas, and we anticipate many practical opportunities for cross-mission collaboration. The data 

framework and modeling techniques used to forecast ecosystem changes will build on collaborative work and knowledge 

produced within the other mission areas. 

Golden Eagles in Denali Park

Denali National Park is a popular venue for visitors 

and for nesting golden eagles. The key tradeoff in park 

management is between the dual National Park Service 

objectives of public use and healthy natural systems, 

with the possibility that one form of use, hiking near 

golden eagle nest sites, may reduce eagle occupancy 

and nesting success. Management involves closure of 

areas to hiking during the nesting season, with closure decisions derived as a function of eagle population status and snowshoe hare (key eagle prey item) 

abundance. Adaptive management of hiking activity in 

the proximity of golden eagle nests at Denali National 

Park is an example of successful collaboration between 

scientists and managers to meet multiple resource 

objectives.

Strategic Approach 4. Support Decision-Making

• Develop quantitative approaches, tools, and capacity to 

evaluate success of adaptation, restoration, and other 

conservation decisions.

• Use output from forecasting models to assess the 

consequences of management actions and evaluate 

the services provided by selected ecosystems under a 

range of future scenarios and management options.

• Provide managers with information to identify ecosystems, habitats, and species that are particularly vulnerable to ongoing and anticipated changes, and collaborate with managers in assessment of potential actions.

This strategic approach involves collaboration with partners to expand capacity, leverage resources, and apply stateof-the-art mapping and decision science to manage natural 

resources in key terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems. 

These collaborations will build on expertise in all USGS mission areas and partner agencies in ecosystem science, monitoring, data collection, decision analysis, and socio-economic 

systems. The tools and approaches of decision assessments 

will be developed and applied to ecosystem management in 

a context of structured decision-making. USGS scientists 

will work with partners to design monitoring protocols and 

determine data gaps for use in evaluating ecosystem responses 

to decisions, determining patterns of ecosystem change, and 

improving understanding of ecosystem structures, functions, 

and processes. Working with partners, the USGS will promote 

the development and use of new technologies for tracking 

ecosystems, investigating ecosystem processes, and evaluating 

ecosystem services.

The principal outcome of these activities will be to 

strengthen ecosystem management and increase the linkages 

between science and its application in resource decision-making. Depending on the ecosystems and issues under investigation, decision analysis will focus on specific interactions with 

the other mission areas. USGS expertise in decision science 

will serve a critical function in integrating interdisciplinary 

concepts in the framing of ecosystem decisions. Decisionanalytic frameworks will be developed that allow for adaptive 

decision-making, with the learning from assessment of ecosystem responses used to inform subsequent management actions. 
20 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

Proposed Actions

The following proposed actions 

are presented as examples of specific 

activities that could be undertaken 

to address the most pressing environmental information needs of our 

Nation. These examples illustrate the 

alignment between societal needs and 

the goals, challenges, and strategic 

approaches outlined in this strategy. 

They demonstrate the integration of 

scientific discovery and application 

that is essential, and they also highlight the cross-cutting interdisciplinary strengths of the USGS.

Proposed action.—Establish a 

USGS Ecosystems Science Forum.

The USGS Ecosystems Mission Area 

needs to coordinate closely with DOI 

and other stakeholders on regional 

and national scales to maximize contributions to ecosystem science. One 

method to accomplish better science 

coordination is to establish a body for 

consultation and communication, a “USGS Ecosystems Science Forum (EcoForum).” The EcoForum would be a standing committee coordinated by the USGS and would include 

participants from interested groups within the DOI bureaus. 

The EcoForum would be charged with ongoing broad-scale 

evaluation of direction, integration, and quality of USGS 

ecosystems science and with formulating recommendations 

for how USGS ecosystems science can be better positioned to 

contribute integrated USGS science to meet partner needs.

Proposed action.—Collaborate with partners to monitor 

responses of endangered species to environmental change.

Federal mandates require the protection of endangered species, 

but it is difficult to determine the best management strategies 

under rapidly changing environmental conditions. Agencies 

responsible for the management of endangered species need 

tools for understanding the impacts of future changes on 

these sensitive populations. The ability to visualize current 

distributions and potential range shifts as a consequence of 

global climate change is an important component of effective 

management of listed species. Range shifts will likely span 

land-management and political boundaries, so it is important 

to develop consistent and comparable datasets to track species 

distributions and populations. The USGS, in collaboration 

with our partners, can compile and standardize existing data 

on ranges of endangered species, identify information gaps, 

and develop a coordinated plan for monitoring changes in the 

species distributions. This compiled information can be used 

as input for models forecasting movement and population 

changes of endangered species in response to environmental 

change. 

Proposed action.—Improve understanding of the impacts 

of alternative energy development on ecosystems. Renewable energy alternatives that will reduce the Nation’s dependence on foreign energy resources are receiving increasing 

attention. While these alternatives have been viewed as 

relatively harmless by some people, there are environmental 

consequences that need to be considered. For example, wind 

turbine development has impacted bird and bat migrations and 

caused increased mortality. As new alternative energy technologies are developed and older technologies are improved, 

managers will need to understand the consequences and 

tradeoffs of these technologies to ecosystems. USGS interdisciplinary perspectives are well situated to provide science for 

selecting sites for energy development that minimize impacts 

to species and habitats, evaluate the consequences of various 

management alternatives, and provide managers with tools 

that they can use to improve their decision-making.

Proposed action.—Incorporate understanding of past patterns of environmental variability into forecasting efforts.

Environmental changes are occurring across the United States 

at unprecedented rates, with implications for the sustainability of ecosystem services and the Nation’s well-being. A 

vast amount of information recording these changes exists in 

isolated datasets and reports. There is a critical need to synthesize, compare, and analyze this existing information into 

integrated assessments of how and why human actions and 

natural events interact to bring about changes in biodiversity, 

nutrient cycling, energy flow, and ecosystem services. Such 

syntheses would help answer important questions about which 

processes of environmental change are most important, which 

are changing most rapidly and where, and how these altered 

processes interact to influence life-supporting functions of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. These assessments 

would contribute to the development of models of ecosystems’ 

responses to drivers and would lead to better forecasts of 

change, including strategies for mitigation and adaption.

Proposed action.—Improve the ability to predict the 

occurrence and consequences of fire across the landscape.

Fire has the ability to significantly alter an ecosystem, yet 

our understanding of the potential and consequences of fire 

remains limited. The probability of fire at a given location 

depends on a number of variables including ignition sources, 

vegetation types, and available fuels. Severe and intense fires 

may cross a threshold for the ecosystem that impacts the resilience of successional cycles and may lead to completely new 

patterns of succession. The resulting ecosystem following such 

a fire can represent a completely new situation. The USGS can 

work with land-management agencies to develop informed 

fire management plans that are based on an understanding of 

potential outcomes. In addition, fires frequently originate in 

unmanaged lands, and they spread across jurisdictional boundaries. The USGS has the capacity to provide information on 

the variability of vegetation and fuels in space and time without regard to boundaries. This information is critical to understanding the hazards to people and property associated with 

Priority 

Societal

Issues

Strategic

Approaches

Goals and

Challenges

Proposed

Actions
Proposed Actions 21

the risk of wildland fire. Fires also affect carbon sequestration, 

water availability, and fish and wildlife habitat. Knowledge 

of interactions between ecosystem structure and wildland fire 

is critical to modeling and forecasting the future probability 

and consequences of fire across the landscape in response to 

changing climate and land use.

Proposed action.—Investigate the impacts of acidification 

on ecosystems. Recent work has documented the anthropogenic activities that are causing acidification of the Earth’s 

oceans, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels, smelting of ores, mining of coal and metal ores, and application of 

soil fertilizers. Key issues are the magnitude of anthropogenic 

acidification and connections to the degradation of terrestrial, 

freshwater, and marine systems at regional to global scales, 

and specifically the impact of more acidic ocean waters on 

carbonate-secreting organisms, such as corals and other invertebrates. Cost-effective mitigation efforts will require a better 

understanding of the capacities for communities and ecosystems to adapt to increasingly acidic environments. In addition 

to understanding the biological responses, it is essential to 

understand the compounding effects of multiple drivers of 

change. The USGS should develop collaborations with other 

governmental and academic efforts to understand how and 

why alterations in biogeochemical properties and processes 

like acidification are affecting the provision of goods and 

services that sustain human health, societal well-being, and 

national security.

Proposed action.—Work with resource managers to 

develop science-based restoration performance measures 

and targets. A priority for the USGS is to provide science 

to our partner land management agencies in areas that have 

been targeted for restoration and rehabilitation. The challenge 

for restoration/rehabilitation of ecosystems is to integrate a 

strong scientific understanding and institutional commitment 

to highly interactive, collaborative decision-making involving scientists, managers, and stakeholders. Resource managers often are required to develop performance measures and 

targets (specific goals) for restoration, yet they are managing 

landscapes that have already been altered. In addition, the 

resource they manage does not occur in isolation of surrounding landscapes. USGS science can provide an understanding 

of the ecological processes, past patterns of ecological variability, and drivers of change across the regional landscape 

that lead to the development of scientifically defensible performance measures and targets for restoration of the resource. 

Proposed action.—Develop teams to investigate the scale 

and effects of environmental disasters. Unforeseen natural 

and manmade disasters affect ecosystems as well as human 

lives, property, and infrastructure. In some cases, ecological 

effects may exacerbate disasters, for example by increasing the potential for subsequent floods, landslides, or coastal 

flooding until the ecosystem recovers. The USGS should 

develop interdisciplinary and collaborative response teams in 

coordination with other mission areas to evaluate effects of 

environmental disasters on ecosystems and improve forecasts 

of their consequences. Following initial evaluation, the disaster response team could establish a coordinated monitoring 

effort to document the subsequent changes to the ecosystem, 

in order to provide basic scientific information on ecosystem 

processes and functions, response to drivers, and impacts of 

disasters on ecosystem services. The results of these coordinated and focused studies of disaster response can be applied 

to modeling efforts and will provide resource managers with 

tools to anticipate and respond rapidly and effectively to future 

environmental disasters.

Proposed action.—Incorporate environmental thresholds 

and resiliency in the assessment of ecosystem dynamics. 

USGS research should recognize and address more explicitly 

the complex issues involving environmental thresholds and the 

prospect of large, potentially irreversible changes in ecosystem behaviors. Nonlinear trajectories, thresholds that separate 

them, and complex patterns of change in system dynamics often characterize large and interconnected ecosystems. 

As the scope and scale of issues grow with climate change, 

continuing land-use change, and other factors associated with 

increasing human populations, the need to describe, model, 

and assess nonlinear attributes in the context of sustainable 

resources is becoming increasingly urgent. The USGS has the 

opportunity to expand its science capacity and infrastructure to 

better understand these issues and to integrate that understanding into the agency’s science portfolio.

Proposed action.—Develop integrated models for forecasting the consequences of climate change to ecosystems. 

Forecasts of changes in ecological systems rely on models that 

include the dynamic components of an ecosystem. Though 

many existing models include ecosystem responses to change, 

they are based on dynamic ecological processes that are 

stationary through time. A significant challenge in accounting 

for climate change in ecological models is to recognize that 

environmental variation is not stationary. To improve our ability to forecast the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, 

the USGS will need to develop new approaches to modeling 

that incorporate nonstationary change. In addition, models will 

need to simultaneously examine ecosystem characteristics and 

environmental drivers of change in those characteristics. Such 

models will provide managers with a better understanding of 

the consequences of land-use decisions and climate change on 

ecosystems. The applications of this integrated modeling range 

from endangered species management to large-scale changes 

in species distribution patterns. The USGS should expand its 

capacity to develop these integrated models through interdisciplinary collaboration and building on existing efforts. 

Proposed action.—Evaluate factors that contribute to 

the establishment, spread, and control of invasive species. Invasive species are a leading threat to native species 

and their ecosystem services. The magnitude of impact from 

invasives on native species assemblages hinges on site-specific 

characteristics and other drivers of population decline, such 

as habitat degradation and climate change. A priority for the 

USGS is to understand the movement of invasive species 
22 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

across national boundaries. The USGS also needs to investigate how invasives affect key ecosystem processes, to predict 

which systems are most likely vulnerable to new invasions, 

and to develop innovative approaches to control or eliminate 

the spread of invasives. Cost-effective rehabilitation efforts 

will require a better understanding of how invasive species 

affect ecosystems and their communities.

Proposed action.—Build capacity and expertise to quantify 

the costs and benefits of ecosystem services. An important 

research thrust for the USGS during the next decade will 

involve defining, measuring, and valuing ecosystem services. 

A key research challenge is to describe and assess the linkages 

between ecosystem structures and functions, and the production of ecosystem services. A second research challenge will 

be to evaluate the ecosystem services thereby produced, using 

both market and nonmarket valuation methods. This research 

will fold directly into a science framework for sustainable 

management of natural resources and will contribute to a more 

complete accounting and assessment of the resulting ecosystem services. USGS investment in ecosystem services science 

will include investigations by USGS scientists and cooperative 

interactions with academic and agency partners at the forefront 

of this developing field of science.

Proposed action.—Investigate and evaluate the effects 

of fossil fuel development on ecosystems. The demand for 

fossil fuels and expanded exploration of new energy sources 

has placed unprecedented pressures on selected ecosystems 

across the country. While much of the recent expansion has 

occurred in the Western United States, exploration is now 

occurring in the Midwest and East, as well as coastal areas. 

There is an urgent need to provide managers with information 

to understand ecosystem effects, predict where those effects 

may occur, and develop new mitigation strategies if impacts 

do occur. In addition, the development and dissemination of 

decision support technologies are urgently needed as managers 

cope with evaluating tradeoffs of various development alternatives and try to understand the consequences to the resources 

they manage. Close coordination with the Water, Energy and 

Minerals, and Environmental Health Mission Areas will be 

critical to addressing these issues.

Proposed action.—Develop innovative approaches to 

ecological flow science. The growing demands for water 

resources will increase the already urgent need for sciencebased decision-making in water management. The interdisciplinary science of ecological flows, linking aquatic and 

riparian ecosystems directly to water, will be required to 

inform those decisions. Although originally focused on low 

flows in regulated rivers, management needs have grown 

into the broader scope of how species are affected by a wide 

range of factors involving water quantity and quality, as 

influenced by multiple stressors including dams, diversions, 

land-use change, and climate change. Progress in ecological 

flow science will require the USGS to demonstrate the utility 

of approaches that address how hydrologic alterations affect 

food webs, population processes, biotic interactions (predation, competition), disturbance processes, water quality, and 

contaminants. 

Proposed action.—Develop robust approaches to natural 

resource decision-making in the face of climate change. 

Climate change is expected to exacerbate uncertainties facing 

resource managers and to influence all of the major components of an informed decision process (objectives, actions, 

models, monitoring, and alternative assessments). Multidisciplinary teams of USGS scientists can work with our 

partners to address questions of how agencies, societies, and 

ecosystems will (1) continue ongoing management of natural 

resources in the face of climate change and (2) initiate new 

efforts to mitigate or adapt to climate change. USGS scientists 

will be encouraged to work with agency managers to develop 

fundamental scientific understanding and robust approaches to 

decision-making in the face of the increased uncertainty that 

will attend climate change. A key component is an increased 

emphasis on decision-making that incorporates an understanding of dynamic change and moves away from the concept of 

equilibrium. 

Proposed action.—Develop and use new tools and methods 

in the management and conservation of at-risk populations. USGS science can play a pivotal role in understanding 

susceptibility and resistance of species to disease and other 

natural or anthropogenic stressors such as habitat change, 

contaminants, and genetically engineered crops. Newly developed genetic and genomic techniques, for example, will play 

increasingly important roles in the management of wild populations, as well as in the investigation of issues in environmental toxicology, epidemiology, and potential threats from 

genetically engineered organisms. Genetic and genomic techniques will be important in identifying demographic trends, 

determining effective population sizes of species at risk, and 

recognizing species and even individuals from environmental DNA, often by unobtrusive sampling. New technologies 

such as these are growing rapidly, and that growth presents an 

opportunity for USGS science over the next decade. 

Proposed action.—Develop capacity to engage USGS 

scientists in design and execution of adaptive management 

projects. A priority for the ecosystems strategy is to integrate 

science discovery and science application in natural resource 

conservation and management. To accomplish this, the 

USGS needs to engage partners and stakeholders in a process 

of learning-based adaptive decision-making that increases 

understanding of natural resources and better informs future 

decision-making. Adaptive management recognizes uncertainty as to the mechanisms of ecosystem change and the 

influence of management on them. It focuses on the reduction 

of uncertainty through integrated efforts involving scientists, 

managers, and other stakeholders in an iterative process of 

learning through management and adjustment of management actions based on what is learned. USGS scientists have 

made important contributions in characterizing and measuring uncertainties, in the comparative assessment of potential 
Summary and Vision of Ecosystem Science for the USGS 23

consequences of management actions, in the design of monitoring programs that target relevant information for management decisions, and in the development of approaches to 

engage managers and stakeholders in a collaborative process 

of structured, adaptive decision-making. However, the demand 

for these skills by partners and stakeholders far exceeds the 

agency’s capacity to meet that demand. This action would 

build USGS capacity to both conduct adaptive decision 

science and contribute decision support to Federal and State 

agencies and other organizations that are engaged in adaptive 

management projects for ecosystem restoration, adaptation, 

and management.

These actions are not intended to be the exclusive focus 

of ecosystem science in the USGS. Rather, they represent 

steps that can advance the USGS science strategies and help 

to identify priorities for future implementation plans. Efforts 

by the USGS and partners to observe, understand, map, and 

model ecosystems will vary in response to unexpected events 

and priorities at regional as well as national and global scales. 

We emphasize that implementation of the strategic 

approaches and the proposed actions will depend on partners, 

collaborators, and stakeholders to help identify and prioritize the scientific information that they need to enhance the 

conservation and management of natural resources. This is 

in keeping with the vision of science that is deeply integrated 

with applications (figs. 1 and 2), such that science is framed, 

conducted, and applied by working directly with those who 

ultimately use and advance that science. Future actions and 

priorities will be identified and refined through multiple feedbacks within the USGS and from working with collaborators. 

The overall goal is to provide opportunities for scientists and 

managers to simultaneously advance scientific understanding 

and meet management’s information needs.

Summary and Vision of Ecosystem 

Science for the USGS

The Nation faces complex and urgent environmental and 

social challenges that weigh heavily on the future security and 

well-being of society. Ecosystem science will be critical in 

meeting these challenges, and the USGS can make key contributions by conducting scientific investigations and providing 

science in decision processes described above. In coordination 

with DOI partners and other Federal, tribal, State, territorial, 

and local institutions and non-governmental collaborators, the 

USGS will:

• Identify priority issues that concern the use and sustainability of the Nation’s natural resources.

• Invest in research, observations, monitoring, assessments, mapping, and modeling of biological, ecological, and social systems.

• Discover, understand, map, and describe the structures, 

functions, and drivers that influence fundamental ecosystem processes.

• Explain the distribution, abundance, and dynamics of 

the Nation’s natural resources.

• Clarify the causes of change in biological and ecological systems over multiple spatial and temporal scales, 

including alterations in the Nation’s environmental 

capital of ecosystem goods and services.

• Develop assessments, models, maps, and forecasts 

that deal explicitly with uncertainty to inform resource 

managers about natural hazards; resource extractions; 

land, water, and energy use; climate; and invasive species, pathogens, and disease.

• Provide decision-makers with tools and techniques to 

explore policy and management options, including the 

investigation of tradeoffs in the costs and benefits of 

conservation, mitigation, adaptation, and restoration 

strategies.

• Implement adaptive, ecosystem-based resource management protocols and standards involving scientists 

and stakeholders who collaborate early and often to 

inform decisions within a decision-making framework 

that effectively integrates scientific discovery with 

applications.

By working proactively with stakeholders, building 

on USGS’s broad scientific foundation, and integrating our 

portfolio of ecosystems science with the other mission area 

portfolios, the USGS will accelerate the understanding needed 

to manage biological and ecological systems. In so doing, our 

Bureau will provide information of fundamental importance 

in sustaining the Nation’s natural resource heritage for future 

generations.
24 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

Important Next Steps

This strategy presents a broad, strategic vision of USGS 

ecosystem science for the next decade and represents the first 

step in a process that will include a more detailed implementation strategy for the ideas outlined here. Prior to the initiation of the implementation phase, we will need to coordinate 

closely with other mission areas, agencies, and organizations 

in the science community to understand where USGS efforts 

can provide added value to existing research efforts and to 

identify promising new directions consistent with the goals 

and approaches in this strategy. In addition, the USGS will 

need to collaborate closely with resource agencies in the DOI 

to address their needs for species and ecosystem management. The establishment of a USGS science forum (see first 

proposed action p. 20) provides an opportunity to foster such 

collaboration. Additional working groups like this may be 

necessary to include other partners that do not fall under the 

DOI umbrella. The important message is that there is still 

much work to do to ensure that our implementation strategy 

recognizes important ecosystem science that is being conducted by our partners and that USGS efforts include the priorities of our partners and stakeholders, while fundamentally 

advancing ecosystem science. Working with these partners 

and stakeholders, the USGS will play a key role over the next 

decade in developing the science foundation for sustaining the 

natural resources that diverse, productive, resilient ecosystems 

provide. 

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Appendixes
28 The U.S. Geological Survey Ecosystem Science Strategy, 2012–2022

Appendix 1. Author Affiliations and Acknowledgments

The USGS Ecosystem SSPT is composed of the following individuals:

Name Affiliation Title

Dr. Gary Brewer (co-chair)1 Hazards Mission Area, Retired Ocean Science Coordinator, Coastal and Marine Geology 

Program

Dr. Byron K. Williams (co-chair) Ecosystems Mission Area Chief, Cooperative Research Units and Co-Director, Science and Decisions Center

Dr. G. Lynn Wingard (co-chair) Northeast Area Research Geologist, Eastern Geology and Paleoclimate 

Science Center

Dr. James Cloern Pacific Southwest Area Senior Scientist, National Research Program

Dr. Guy Gelfenbaum Pacific Southwest Area Oceanographer, Coastal and Marine Geology

Dr. Robert B. Jacobson Southcentral Area Supervisory Research Hydrologist, Columbia Environmental Research Center

Dr. Jeffery L. Kershner Northcentral Area Center Director, Northern Rocky Mountains Science Center

Dr. Anthony D. McGuire Alaska Area Assistant Unit Leader, Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

Dr. James D. Nichols Northeast Area Senior Scientist, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

Dr. Carl D. Shapiro Energy and Minerals, and Environmental 

Health Mission Areas

Economist and Co-Director, Science and Decisions Center

Dr. Charles van Riper III Pacific Southwest Area Senior Scientist, Southwest Biological Science Center

Dr. Robin P. White Ecosystems Mission Area Bureau Approving Official, Office of Science Quality and 

Integrity

1

Gary Brewer served as co-chair from October 2010 until his retirement December 30, 2011. Lynn Wingard was appointed co-chair in January 2012.

The team appreciates the support and guidance provided by Anne Kinsinger, USGS Associate Director for the Ecosystems 

Mission Area and our SSPT champion. Sarah Gerould assisted with coordinating the team’s activities and provided other valuable services and knowledgeable insight. We thank the many USGS scientists and external stakeholders who shared their knowledge of biological and ecological science with the team and contributed thoughtful comments on-line, during listening sessions, 

and in reviewing draft material.
Appendixes 29

Appendix 2. Key Terms

Adaptation The adjustment of natural or human systems to 

a new or changing environment. Adaptation to climate change 

refers to adjustments in natural or human systems to reduce 

vulnerability to actual or anticipated climate change, or to 

exploit opportunities arising from that change.

Adaptive management Management that accounts for 

uncertainty about the processes that control natural resource 

behavior and the influence of management on resource 

changes. Adaptive resource management involves iterative 

decision-making along with resource monitoring to reduce 

this uncertainty through time and thereby improve resource 

management.

Collaborator In the context of USGS ecosystem science, a 

collaborator is a person, institution, or agency that participates 

in a collaborative scientific endeavor. Collaboration is used 

as an umbrella term to include peer-to-peer scientific relations, interactions with management agencies, and information 

exchanges with stakeholders. A partner (see below) is considered a specific type of collaborator.

Decision analysis In natural resources management, an 

investigation of decisions that can influence resource conditions and (or) processes. Decision analysis may focus on a 

single decision made at a particular time, or iterative decisionmaking with the opportunity to learn through time and adjust 

management strategies based on what is learned.

Driver A factor that causes a change in an organism, community, ecosystem, or other ecological component of the 

landscape. An ecological driver may be biotic (for example, an 

invasive plant species that causes a decrease in the biological 

diversity of a forest) or abiotic (for example, a fire that causes 

a decrease in the biological diversity of a forest).

Ecosystem rehabilitation Recovery of ecosystem structure 

and function but not necessarily to a pre-disturbance condition.

Ecosystem restoration The process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or 

destroyed. The end state or reference condition for ecosystem 

restoration is rarely a pristine, natural state and in most cases 

recovery is defined as a condition that returns the ecosystem to 

a socially acceptable level of natural structure, function, and 

process.

Ecosystem science The study of systems of organisms interacting with their environment, and the consequences of natural 

and human-induced change on those systems.

Ecosystem services Goods and services that create value for 

human users and are derived from ecosystem processes such 

as nutrient recycling, climate regulation, and maintenance of 

biodiversity. Examples of ecosystem services include provision of clean drinking water, flood risk reduction, pollination 

of crops, and decomposition of wastes. 

Existence value The value of an ecosystem attribute that 

accrues whether or not the attribute is ever experienced. 

Examples are the Caribou breeding grounds in the Arctic 

wilderness or the mangrove wilderness of southwest Florida. 

Many people never experience these places in person but 

value their existence. 

Feedback A mechanism, process, or signal that is looped 

back to control a resource system within itself. In systems 

containing an input and output, feeding back part of the output 

so as to increase the input is positive feedback; feeding back 

part of the output in such a way as to partially oppose the input 

is negative feedback.

Partner In the context of USGS ecosystem science, a partner 

is an individual, agency, or other group whose participation 

in a collaborative scientific endeavor includes investment of 

resources. 

Resilience The ability of a system to absorb disturbances 

and still retain the same basic structure and functions. A 

resilient system is flexible and forgiving of external shocks. As 

resilience declines, the magnitude of shocks from which the 

system cannot recover gets smaller and smaller. Management 

for resilience seeks flexible system behaviors that can deliver 

desired ecosystem goods and services on a sustained basis.

Stakeholder An individual or organization (for example, a 

manager, scientist, private citizen, non-governmental organization) with a vested interest in a shared enterprise. Interests 

can include an expectation of received benefit, a perceived 

threat, a prior investment of time or resources, or values 

shared with others associated with the enterprise. Partners are 

distinguished from stakeholders in that partners bring to the 

discussion table funds or resources (such as in-kind labor). 

Collaborators are referred to in this report as an equivalent to 

scientific peers in developing studies and conducting research.

Stressor An agent, attribute, or event that induces stress in 

a resource system. The factor that triggers the stress response

may be a chemical or biological agent, environmental condition, external stimulus, or event.

Structured decision-making An organized approach to identifying and evaluating options and making choices in complex 

decision situations. The goal is to inform difficult choices and 

to make them more transparent and efficient through the integration of technical analysis with value-based deliberations.

Sustainability The capacity to endure over an extended time. 

Sustainable resource systems retain their structure, function, 

and ability to provide ecosystem services, and sustainable 

management is conducive to such retention. Sustainability is 

closely tied to the concept of system resilience.

Threshold The limiting value of a resource attribute that triggers a change in management actions. Management strategies 

often include thresholds, such that one action is specified for 

resource values less than the threshold and a different action is 

specified for resource values greater than the threshold.