This award will fund project year 2 (PY2) of our study, entitled refining our understanding of limberpine-juniper woodland habitat use in wyomings bighorn basin to maximize landscapeconservation…

This award will fund project year 2 (PY2) of our study, entitled refining our understanding of limberpine-juniper woodland habitat use in wyomings bighorn basin to maximize landscapeconservation benefits for both greater sage-grouse and pinyon JAY. Our study aims to identifymanagement recommendations that support the viability and recovery goals of greater sage-grouse(centrocercus urophasianus GSG), pinyon JAY (gymnorhinus cyanocephalus PJ), and limber pine(pinus flexilis LP).GSG and PJ represent two declining bird species in wyomings bighorn basin. Neither the GSG nor thepj is formally listed under the endangered species act though both species have recently experiencedsharp declines and PJS are currently under review for listing. Management tactics to improve sagebrushhabitat conditions for GSG by eliminating potentially encroaching conifers (i.e., mechanical thinning andburning) may have unintended negative impacts to PJ habitat in LP communities. While PJS occupywyomings bighorn basin, PJS have not been formally studied in wyoming.PJS, in our region, likely subsist primarily on the seeds of LP, but no formal study has proven thishypothesized link. Both PJ and LP populations are threatened by the compounding effects of climatechange and other human activities but these impacts are poorly understood.for a full description of hypotheses and objectives, please see the project narrative. In PY2, we willexpand spatial coverage, capturing and tagging PJS, to determine PJ habitat selection, home rangesize, seasonal movement, morphology, diet, and disease state at the PJS northern distribution.hypothesis 1: while typically associated with pion-juniper woodlands, in northern regions of the pjsrange, LP is selected for as critical foraging and communal nesting habitat.hypothesis 2: PJ habitat does not significantly overlap with preferred GSG sagebrush habitat but mayoverlap with proposed wind energy sites.hypothesis 3: PJS in wyomings bighorn basin are morphologically distinct, and harbor unique geneticvariants associated with local geography, climate, and food sources.activities to be performed:we will use standardized methods to survey for and capture PJS and monitor movements with GPS tagsdevices. One-year post-capture we will recapture tracked individuals, remove devices, and download data. We will estimate west nile virus and influenza a in PJS with oral swabs and parasites with bloodsamples. We will retain feathers and fecal deposits, to assess diet and for metabarcoding analysis ofmicrobiome communities. We will also fit each captured bird with a USFWS band. We will refine vegetation datasets (e.g., landfire) with high-resolution aerial imagery (e.g., naip) toidentify vegetation types associated with locations of tagged PJS. We will estimate tree encroachment intosagebrush habitat and produce a map that reveals areas of potential habitat management conflict for pjand GSG. Finally, ground surveys will characterize stands within nest sites as well as at randomizedcontrol sites that did not contain nesting colonies.a formal report including management recommendations pertaining to GSG, PJ, and LP will besubmitted to the BLM.intended beneficiariesbiodiversity and land managers of sagebrush or pinyon juniper habitat, particularly the BLM, as thisagency alone is responsible for 45% of the sagebrush habitat in the US and is open to management ordevelopment priorities that may compete with priorities for species conservation.