Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Integrative Activities awarded $299,667 through its Integrative Activities program (CFDA 47.083) to Boise State University for an EPSCOR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) Research Fellows project running from May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2028. The award provides a fellowship to an associate professor and postdoctoral training to support research examining how drought and rainfall variability affect plant clustering patterns in dryland ecosystems. The project will deliver early warning detection methodologies for ecosystem degradation by integrating field-based precipitation manipulation experiments, drone-based remote sensing imagery, and machine learning algorithms to identify individual plants and map vegetation patterns across five dryland ecosystem types.

The core deliverables include experimental research infrastructure and data analysis products generated through collaborative work with the University of New Mexico, training outcomes for postdoctoral scholars through the NSF Sevilleta Long-Term Ecological Research Program, and validated spatial pattern-process analyses quantifying treatment effects on plant clustering. By combining replicated field experiments with high-resolution aerial imagery and point-pattern statistical analyses, this work advances institutional capacity at Boise State University for experimental ecological research while generating practical tools for detecting ecosystem degradation in drylands that cover approximately 40 percent of Earth's land surface.