Grants / Department of Defense / Dept. of the Army -- Corps of Engineers

W81EWF-24-SOI-0020: Wading Bird Colony Location, Size, Timing, and Reproductive Success in Lake Okeechobee

Closed Closed June 4, 2024 Opportunity W81EWF-24-SOI-0020 ☆ Save

This grant is closed. A newer notice from the same program is open now: ERDC Broad Agency Announcement (W912HZ26S0001). Status: Closes January 1, 2027 (55 days left). It is in our archive of Dept. of the Army -- Corps of Engineers notices from 2024.

• Award ceiling$124,000
• Expected awards1
• 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 opportunity is restricted to non-federal partners of the South Florida – Caribbean Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit (CESU).

Is this a realistic fit?

• Past Basic, Applied, and Advanced Research in Science and Engineering awards averaged $1.1 million; this notice allows up to $124,000 per award.
• Most of the program's money (69% over five years) went to colleges and universities.
• No cost sharing or match is required.

What the grant funds

Background The Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2000 authorized the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) as a framework for modifications and operational changes to the Central and Southern Florida Project needed to restore the south Florida ecosystem. Provisions within WRDA 2000 provided for specific authorization for an adaptive assessment and monitoring program. The CERP Monitoring and Assessment Plan (MAP) was developed as a framework for measuring and understanding system responses to CERP, determining how well CERP is meeting its goals and objectives, and identifying opportunities for improving the performance of CERP where needed. REstoration, COordination, VERification (RECOVER) is a multiagency, multidisciplinary group responsible for implementing the CERP MAP. Wading birds are a dominant guild of predators in the Everglades ecosystem and their breeding population responses are considered to be integrative and reflective of many aspects of wetland habitat and systemwide hydrologic conditions; thus wading birds have been identified as a key suite of indicator species of restoration success. Restoration has been centered on several trophic hypotheses regarding wading birds (e.g., appropriate hydrology will increase fish and macroinvertebrate populations, enhanced foraging opportunities will increase wading bird breeding, and the return of flow to coastal regions will restore wading bird nesting in those areas). Without the appropriate monitoring of wading bird colonies, these hypotheses cannot be assessed and CERP may not achieve its goals. To determine if restoration effects are system-wide or local, it is necessary to monitor all “patches” of wading bird breeding activity across the south Florida ecosystem. The Lake Okeechobee basin is just one patch of the landscape hosting breeding wading birds, but the information gathered is vital to determine the success of CERP. This project will draw upon prior research conducted in the Everglades and in Lake Okeechobee basin and will continue to study how CERP restoration influences breeding and reproductive success of wading bird populations. Program Description/Objective The purpose of this research is to continue a long-term dataset used to record and monitor changes in annual numbers and reproductive success of breeding wading bird populations in the Lake Okeechobee basin.

Category: Science and Technology and other Research and Development.

Applying now

This notice no longer takes applications. Apply under the newer notice, W912HZ26S0001, which is open now.

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