Grants / Department of the Interior / Geological Survey

G25AS00333: Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with the Desert Southwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

Closed Closed August 29, 2025 Opportunity G25AS00333 ☆ Save

This grant is closed. A newer notice from the same program is open now: Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with Alaska Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (G27AS00066). Status: Closes December 7, 2026 (30 days left). It is in our archive of Geological Survey notices from 2025.

• Award ceiling$150,000
• Award floor$1
• Total funding$150,000
• Cost sharingNot required
• Funding typeCooperative Agreement

Key dates

Who can apply

This opportunity was open to the applicants described in the notice.

• Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification)

THIS FUNDING OPPORTUNITY IS SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY. This financial assistance opportunity is being issued under a Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) Program. CESU"s are partnerships that provide research, technical assistance, and education. Eligible recipients must be a participating partner of the Desert Southwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) Program.

Is this a realistic fit?

• Past U.S. Geological Survey Research and Data Collection awards averaged $557,251; this notice allows up to $150,000 per award.
• Most of the program's money (84% over five years) went to colleges and universities.
• No cost sharing or match is required.

What the grant funds

The USGS Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC) seeks to provide financial assistance for research investigating the vulnerability of saguaros to aridification in Saguaro National Park (hereafter SAGU), and how to make populations more resilient. The southwest U.S is experiencing a severe, long-term drought that is threatening regional water sources, human health, and plant and wildlife communities. Temperatures at SAGU increased 1.2°C since 1895 and are expected to climb in future decades. Managers at SAGU are observing changes in the vegetation communities, fire regimes, and water resources that are related to long-term drought and exacerbated by higher temperatures leading to long-term aridification. The Park"s namesake species, the saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea), is a drought-adapted, long-lived keystone species that directly supports at least 100+ other plant and animal species. The park"s saguaro population began rebounding in the 1960s after decades of decline, most likely due to management practices that protected nurse trees, which young saguaros require for shelter from environmental stress. Many of these plants are now reaching reproductive age. However, since the mid-1990s scientists have documented declines in saguaro seedling survival. In the park"s Cactus Forest, recruitment since 1995 is <10% of what it was in prior decades, and similar results are observed throughout all habitats in the park. While recent studies provide insight into how saguaros are responding to changing environmental factors, they do not address causal effects or provide direct answers to questions related to long-term survival of saguaros in the park; key information needed by managers to decide how to protect this species soon. are essential to achieving the park"s mission. These questions are especially relevant today given the current poor recruitment in the plant"s drier western range including Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and in the urban heat island of Phoenix, Arizona, where there is anecdotal evidence that otherwise healthy saguaros may be dying due to extreme night-time temperatures. Challenges to conserving an iconic, keystone species are not unique to SAGU and knowledge and management actions can be applied to other public lands on which saguaro"s and potentially other iconic cactus occur.

Category: Science and Technology and other Research and Development.

Applying now

This notice no longer takes applications. Apply under the newer notice, G27AS00066, which is open now.

The notice on Grants.gov keeps its full text and attachments, which is useful for planning a resubmission.