Request for Letters of Research Interest (LOI)
Midwest Regional Office, National Park Service
Co-production of decision support models for bison and grassland management in Midwest Region National Parks
Deadline for responding with your letter of interest is April 3, 2018
Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt, Wind Cave, and Tallgrass Prairie National Park Units are working to develop a regional strategic bison management strategy. This adaptive management approach will include ecological and cultural goals as well as those that pertain specifically to bison management, and will include considerations of visitor experience, partner relationships, and cost efficiencies. The outcome of this project will be a simulation model to support resource managers and park superintendents in decision-making for short and long-term management decisions. The model will integrate current grassland and bison resource information, and will simulate the anticipated outcomes of specific short and long-term management actions based on current system information. Model development will include identification of key uncertainties. While sensitivity analysis will assist decision-making under uncertainty, the model will help identify metrics to effectively implement an adaptive management approach and reduce future uncertainty.
Funds Available
Project funds expected to be available are approximately $73,000. The funding includes an overhead rate of 17.5 percent.
The project will be funded by the National Park Service. Universities and other organizations within the CESU network are eligible to apply.
The NPS anticipates that this project will require approximately one year to complete and is expected to start in September 2018.
Contact
Questions, and well as responses of interest, should be directed by midnight on April 3, 2018 to Nicole Athearn (Nicole_Athearn@nps.gov) and Greg Eckert (Greg_Eckert@nps.gov).
Bison management modeling letter of interest 2018