Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Colorado Plateau CESU | G18AS00077

Opportunity Information: Apply for G18AS00077

The Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Colorado Plateau CESU grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number G18AS00077) is a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) discretionary funding call, issued under the Department of the Interior, to support a single cooperative agreement focused on water-quality science and related research and development. The program is aimed at a CESU partner organization and is structured to fund a targeted research effort rather than a broad multi-year program. The total anticipated maximum award is up to $50,000, with one award expected.

The central purpose of the project is to evaluate whether environmental DNA (eDNA) methods for benthic invertebrates can improve the ability to detect ecological impacts caused by environmental contamination in streams and rivers. Benthic invertebrates (the aquatic organisms living on or in the bottom sediments) are a cornerstone of stream biomonitoring because their community composition tends to reflect cumulative environmental conditions. Traditionally, these organisms are sampled physically and identified, which can be time-consuming, limited by taxonomic expertise, and sometimes insensitive to rare, cryptic, or hard-to-collect taxa. This funding opportunity is positioned around the idea that newer molecular tools, particularly eDNA approaches, may overcome some of those long-standing constraints and provide a more sensitive or informative signal of ecological change associated with pollutants.

The work is tied directly to the USGS National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) project, which has a history of conducting regional stream-quality assessments across the United States. In these assessments, NAWQA measures numerous environmental stressors at the same time as ecological conditions, typically across roughly 100 stream sites in a given region. The opportunity specifically highlights the California Regional Assessment (CSQA) as a key dataset for this study. During CSQA, NAWQA collected eDNA samples at 84 stream sites alongside traditional macroinvertebrate sampling, creating a rare paired dataset where molecular and conventional biological data can be compared site-by-site under the same environmental context.

A major value of the CSQA dataset, as described in the announcement, is that it provides an unusually strong platform for testing whether modern DNA-based methods offer measurable improvements over conventional approaches in detecting the ecological effects of pollutants. Because the NAWQA framework includes concurrent monitoring of multiple stressors (for example, contaminants and other environmental pressures) and ecological responses, the proposed research is expected to focus on how well eDNA-derived invertebrate signals track contamination gradients or pollutant-related stress compared to traditional macroinvertebrate metrics. In practical terms, the funded project would likely involve analyzing and interpreting the existing paired eDNA and traditional macroinvertebrate datasets to determine whether eDNA improves detection, resolution, or interpretability of biological responses to contamination in running waters.

Administratively, the opportunity was created July 5, 2018, with an original closing date of July 20, 2018. It falls under CFDA 15.808 and uses a cooperative agreement funding instrument, which typically indicates substantial involvement or collaboration with USGS scientists during the project. Eligibility is listed broadly as “Others,” but the text makes clear the intent is to fund a partner within the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit network, specifically associated with the Colorado Plateau CESU.

Overall, this grant is a small, focused research award intended to leverage a high-value USGS dataset to answer a timely applied-science question: whether eDNA-based benthic invertebrate assessment can more effectively detect and characterize ecological impacts of environmental contamination in streams and rivers than traditional sampling and identification methods.

• The Department of the Interior, U. S. Geological Survey in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Colorado Plateau CESU" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.808.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 05, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 20, 2018. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $50,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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