Engaging Students in Field Research Collaborations

A cooperative agreement between Northern Arizona University, the National Park Service (NPS), the U.S. Geological Survey Biological Division (USGS-Bio) and other federal agencies provides NAU undergraduates and graduates rich opportunities for applied research in ecology, wildlife behavior, cultural preservation and land management. Known as the Colorado Plateau Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CPCESU), this extensive collaboration engages students in solving resource problems on public lands using interdisciplinary ecosystem studies involving the biological, physical, social, and cultural sciences. CSE helps to coordinate the collaboration and manage the agreement.

In the past six years, 250 graduate and 75 undergraduate students have received nearly 2.5 million dollars in support from the National Park Service alone. This represents an average of 54 students per year receiving $7600 each to pursue research projects. The USGS Southwest Biological Science Center has hired 20 benefit-eligible and 48 temporary student staff through NAU over the past two years.

Noteworthy current or recent research projects involving
NAU students include:

• Bird Inventories in Parks of the Southern Colorado Plateau
• Remote Sensing Studies of Wildlife Habitat
• Ruins Assessment in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
• Population Genetics Research on Endangered Species
• Fire History and Vegetation Change at Mesa Verde National Park
• Cougars of Walnut Canyon and the Flagstaff Uplands
• Scanning Selected Archeological Sites at Walnut Canyon and Wupatki

As a result of these valuable hands-on experiences, nine recent graduates have become NPS employees working to maintain public lands in the Southwest including four Native American graduates currently employed by the National Park Service as ruins preservation specialists and one African American archaeologist now employed by the U.S. Forest Service. There are currently six NAU alumni on the staff of the USGS Southwest Biological Science Center.

NAU also maintains collaborative agreements with Diablo Trust (an award-winning community-based land management consortium) and the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Foundation associated with Babbitt Ranches. Ten undergraduate students have researched grassland ecology and management with Diablo Trust on Anderson Mesa as well as two students completing MS theses and one a PhD dissertation.

The ranchland research clusters into several areas including:

• Assessing the ecological effects of grazing and fire for grasslands
• Quantifying a century of change in vegetation distribution
• Establishing grazing exclosures for experimentation with grassland management
• Developing a sophisticated database for research and monitoring data
   

Find out more at the CPCESU website.

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