Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Piedmont South Atlantic Coast CESU | G17AS00126

Opportunity Information: Apply for G17AS00126

The Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Piedmont South Atlantic Coast CESU opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number G17AS00126) is a discretionary USGS funding announcement issued by the Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, under CFDA 15.808. It is offered as a cooperative agreement, which generally means the USGS expects to stay actively involved during the project, not just provide funds and receive a final report. The program is aimed at a CESU partner organization and focuses on collaborative, science-and-technology research tied to ecological understanding and management of river systems.

The core purpose of the project is to evaluate and quantify how variations in stream flow relate to changes in fish community dynamics. The work is built around an existing, long-term dataset from a 7-year field effort conducted across multiple sites in the ACF river system (the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin). Rather than launching a new field campaign, the emphasis is on pulling together and synthesizing the results already collected, then applying rigorous statistical and ecological analysis to understand how fish communities respond to environmental variability, especially changes in flow.

A major task described in the announcement is analyzing fish species occurrence and count data. This suggests the project will work with datasets that include both presence/absence information (occurrence) and abundance metrics (counts), which often require specialized modeling approaches to handle issues like zero inflation, imperfect detection, and site-to-site differences. The opportunity also calls for developing novel measures of ecological response to environmental variation, indicating the USGS is looking for more than standard summary statistics. The recipient is expected to help create or refine quantitative response indicators that can translate complex biological data into interpretable measures of how fish communities shift with changing hydrologic conditions, potentially supporting broader management, forecasting, or environmental flow applications.

Collaboration and joint reporting with the USGS are explicit expectations. The selected partner will work closely with USGS scientists throughout data analysis and interpretation, and will participate in producing reports of the findings. Because it is framed as a cooperative agreement, that collaboration is not incidental; it is part of the project design, likely involving coordination on analytical choices, interpretation of results, and delivery of final products that meet USGS standards and needs.

In terms of staffing and capacity, the recipient is expected to provide a post-doctoral associate, or equivalent technical expertise, plus any additional technical support needed to complete the analysis and reporting. In practical terms, this means the project is geared toward an organization that can supply advanced quantitative skills in ecology, fisheries science, hydrology-ecology linkages, and applied statistics, along with the project management and support needed to work efficiently with a federal research team.

The anticipated scale of the award is relatively focused: an award ceiling of $93,000 with one expected award. The opportunity was created on August 14, 2017, with an original closing date of August 28, 2017, indicating a short application window and a targeted need. Eligibility is listed as "Others" with clarification in the full notice, but the description makes clear the intended applicants are CESU partners within the Piedmont South Atlantic Coast CESU network.

• The Department of the Interior, Geological Survey in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, Piedmont South Atlantic Coast CESU" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.808.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 14, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 28, 2017. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $93,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for G17AS00126

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