Notice of Intent: Successional changes in arthropod assemblages during watershed restoration and fire management | P17AS00091

Opportunity Information: Apply for P17AS00091

This grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number P17AS00091) comes from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, and supports a cooperative agreement focused on how arthropod (invertebrate) communities change over time as forests and watersheds recover from fire and as managers carry out restoration treatments. The work is centered on the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VALL) and the Jemez Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest, where agencies are implementing large, coordinated landscape restoration funded through the U.S. Forest Service Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) and the DOI Resilient Landscapes Program. The main management goal driving the research is to restore more natural fire regimes across forest and grassland watersheds by reducing excessive fuels and reintroducing fire in a controlled way.

The project is grounded in the reality that fire affects ecosystems differently depending on severity, timing, and habitat type, and those effects ripple through both plants and animals. VALL experienced two major, uncharacteristic wildfires in recent years, the 2011 Las Conchas Fire and the 2013 Thompson Ridge Fire, which caused severe burns in some watersheds and created a strong need to understand post-fire ecological impacts. After the Las Conchas Fire, preserve biologists set up replicated, long-term monitoring sites to track how multiple parts of the ecosystem respond, including vegetation, birds, small mammals, and invertebrates. This opportunity builds on that existing monitoring framework rather than starting from scratch, which means the funded work is meant to extend and strengthen an ongoing dataset that can reveal ecological succession, not just a one-time snapshot.

A second major component involves prescribed fire and before-and-after sampling. The U.S. Forest Service planned a prescribed burn (the Southern Paliza Fire) with invertebrate sampling already conducted pre-burn, and additional collections to follow after the burn is completed. This design is intended to capture fire-related changes in both pest species and beneficial invertebrates, reflecting practical management concerns such as forest health, regeneration, and the balance of species that can either harm or support recovering ecosystems. By combining post-wildfire monitoring (in severely burned areas) with pre- and post-prescribed fire sampling, the project aims to compare different fire contexts and understand how arthropod assemblages shift across forest stands, woodlands, and grasslands through time.

Overall, the grant is aimed at producing applied, management-relevant findings that can be fed directly into adaptive management for restoration and fire programs on the Preserve and adjacent Forest Service lands. In other words, the research is not only about documenting which arthropods are present, but about using successional patterns and community changes as indicators of ecosystem recovery and treatment effects, helping land managers refine thinning strategies, prescribed burn plans, and broader efforts to return fire to the landscape in a way that supports resilient watersheds.

Key administrative details include an award ceiling of $106,000, an expectation of one award, and eligibility limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education. The opportunity is categorized as discretionary funding, uses a cooperative agreement instrument (implying close collaboration with the agency), falls under the Natural Resources activity category, and lists CFDA number 15.945. The notice was created February 22, 2017, with an original closing date of March 3, 2017.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Notice of Intent: Successional changes in arthropod assemblages during watershed restoration and fire management" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Feb 22, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 03, 2017. (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 $106,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P17AS00091

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