Our 4% donations went toward Canyonlands Natural History Association's Resarch-Driven Discovery Pool.
Over the years, we've had the opportunity to consistently contribute to Canyonlands Natural History Association's resarch-driven Discovery Pool. The Discovery Pool is a research grant program that was established to encourage and provide funding for research partnerships between qualified scientists and our federal NPS, BLM, and USFS partners in southeastern Utah. A sampling of this year's projects are below:
- The ecological interactions between pikas and mountain goats, and the management options for both, in the context of conserving the biodiversity of alpine habitats of the Colorado Plateau. One of the alpine obligate species that occurs on the high peaks of the La Sals is the American pika, a charismatic small mammal related to rabbits. Due to the potential adverse effects of climate change on its limited range, the species has been added to the Species of Conservation Concern list for the Manti-La Sal National Forest. This project will provide data beneficial to planning and management of pikas and mountain goats.
- What will new, well-preserved specimens of small vertebrates (e.g., dinosaurs, squamates, mammals) tell us about terrestrial ecosystem evolution at the end of the Jurassic in western North America? This project will assist BLM in meeting the goals of the Paleontology Resources Preservation Act of 2009 to manage and protect paleontological resources on Federal land using scientific principles and expertise.
- Investigating the origins and development of the Ancestral Puebloan Community in Allen and Chippean Canyons, within Bears Ears National Monument. Grant funding furthers the knowledge of this Ancestral Puebloan Basketmaker III-Pueblo I community in Allen and Chippean Canyon area and provides significant information about this poorly understood and complex period in Southeast Utah archaeology.
- The impact of introduced mountain goats on alpine pollinator and ground-dwelling arthropod community structure via their effects on alpine plant communities. In response to the effects of climate change and other potentially adverse influences, there is major interest in pollinator species nationally from the USDA Forest Service and also from the local public. This Discovery Pool research project provides important work to understand this vital but understudied component of the alpine ecosystem.
Learn more about Canyonands Natural History Association here.
