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Greater sage-grouse nest observations before and after wildfire disturbance in northeastern California (2007-2018)

Metadata Updated: December 11, 2025

We monitored Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus; hereafter, Sage-Grouse) nests and various habitat characteristics at the nest locations near Susanville in northeastern California, crossing over into northwestern Nevada. We employed a before-after-control-impact (BACI) experimental design to account for spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the system and to derive estimates of relative change in survival parameters. Sage-Grouse nest survival decreased after the Rush Fire but decreased more in the burned area relative to the unburned area. Although female Sage-Grouse continued to occupy burned areas, nest survival was reduced from 52 percent to 19 percent. Using a BACI ratio approach we found that nest survival decreased approximately 51 percent in the burned area, relative to the unburned area, following wildfire. Habitat analyses were restricted to the post-fire period and found that female Sage-Grouse that nested within unburned areas selected for wider nesting substrate, taller perennial grass height, and greater low sagebrush canopy cover. Conversely, female Sage-Grouse that nested in burned areas used shorter sagebrush canopy cover than what was available across the entire study area, but showed stronger selection for perennial grass height than their unburned counterparts. Strong nest-site fidelity in sage-grouse may explain the continued use of suboptimal habitat in wildfire-altered landscapes, resulting in a reproductive cost, and overall reproduction well below replacement rate. Results suggest that fire suppression or rapid post-fire habitat restoration, especially within nesting habitat, may be essential to conserving robust Sage-Grouse populations into the future.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date December 11, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date December 11, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-62d838a2d34e83b67d134f8f
Data Last Modified 2022-08-22T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 149a5bef-e310-4d4e-92ad-18a4c52cc356
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 57e0845aeea5448f19f412bce9b91b0fb4f44f7f433618a1876c810e036fdafb
Source Schema Version 1.1

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