USGS Home
Contact USGS
Search USGS

• To develop research information on the quantitative ecological requirements for wildlife populations;
• To design and conduct studies of numbers and distribution of flora and fauna, including identification of change resulting from habitat loss and modification; and
• To disseminate the latest in technical information and research findings such that interested audiences benefit to the maximum extent possible.

The Center's mission is essential to the future of the midcontinental North American biota. The Great Plains provide critical habitat for numerous resident and migratory species. Many species adapted to life in vast stretches of unbroken grassland exist nowhere else, while others, primarily birds, breed only in the prairies or are dependent upon food resources of the grasslands or their embedded wetlands during migration. Intensive agriculture and other human activities during the short span of time since European settlement have eliminated huge areas of native grassland and modified what little remains. Habitat loss and fragmentation, fire suppression, invasive exotic species, wetland drainage and tillage, altered hydrology, intensive grazing and pesticide use, and modified predator complexes place many species at risk.

Figure 1. Location of Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center facilities in relation to interior grasslands.

NPWRC facilities are well located to identify and research the problems faced by the biota of the northern and central prairies and to develop strategies to further its survival in the face of anthropogenic change. Headquartered in Jamestown, North Dakota, in the heart of the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region, the Center has field stations in Columbia, Missouri, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and St. Paul, Minnesota (Figure 1). It also possesses a field research facility near Woodworth, North Dakota, which operates during the field season to provide housing and laboratory/logistic support for studies in Missouri Coteau, as of year end added a field station co-located with the U.S. Forest Service in Ely, Minnesota, and partially supports a Cooperative Parks Study Unit at the University of Minnesota that conducts social science studies for the National Parks System.

The Center specializes in field research, and thus maintains only special purpose laboratory and animal holding facilities. The Jamestown headquarters, located on a 600-acre site in the James River Valley, consists of two office buildings, a modern aquatics laboratory for processing wetland samples, a laboratory/freezer building, two residences, equipment buildings, shop facilities, a herbarium, canid holding pens, and a bank of 20, 0.1 ha experimental ponds. A combined dormitory/laboratory building completed this year provides housing for volunteers and work space for processing vegetation or similar "clean" samples. A small library, strong in migratory bird, prairie vegetation, and wetland literature, is currently undergoing expansion.

NPWRC is among the smallest of the USGS biological research centers, with 40 permanent staff, 14 principal research scientists, and a 1998 base budget under $3 million. The Center's disproportionately high productivity evidenced in this report reflects both a long history of cooperative research with scientists from other federal and state agencies, universities, and non-governmental organizations, and a willingness of its scientific staff to assume multiple roles and participate simultaneously in several major studies.

This report summarizes Northern Prairie's accomplishments during Fiscal Year 1998 (FY 98, October 1, 1997-September 30, 1998). It was prepared in response to requests from our many collaborators, cooperators, and partners for information on the sum of our collective effort. It also results from our desire to ensure that others are informed of what we have done so that they may comment on what we might do next. The Center welcomes your comments.