Research Grassland Ecologist (GS-0408-12/13)

The USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station will be advertising for a permanent Research Grassland Ecologist (GS-0408-12/13) position with a duty location in Columbia, MO in the future.

This notification is being circulated to inform prospective applicants of this upcoming opportunity and to determine interest in the position. To express interest in the position, please send a cover letter and your resume to Lauren Pile Knapp, PhD (lauren.pile@usda.gov) via email by November 1, 2023. The hiring manager is considering the use of special hiring authorities to fill the position. If you are eligible for a special hiring authority please indicate that in your cover letter (e.g. 30% or More Disabled Veteran or Schedule A Hiring Authority for individuals with a disability).

Position

The scientist develops studies consistent with the mission of NRS-11 (Problem 1: Understand animal and plant species response to environmental gradients and disturbance including forest and grassland management, climate change, fire, urbanization, invasive species, and land use change to ensure their population viability, productivity, and health in restored, sustainable and resilient ecosystems. Problem 2: Understand and model community and ecosystem dynamics under changing environmental conditions and management, and to develop tools to manage for resilience, function, diversity, health, productivity, and goods and services. Problem 3: Understand processes and function of ecosystems in spatially and temporally explicit model systems to integrate drivers of landscape change in simulations that inform forest land use policy, and management planning and implementation at multi-scales to determine multi-resource outcomes for alternative scenarios along the rural to urban gradient.) with a particular emphasis on grassland and open forest ecosystems including managing for resilience to climate change and disturbance with a particular focus on bird and insect plant-pollinator interactions and the restoration of culturally important plant species. The scientist will work with other researchers in NRS-11 and the rest of the NRS, National Forest System staff, and collaborators in the academic community, state and federal agencies, tribes, forest industry, and non-governmental organizations to develop appropriate research initiatives for new work in these herbaceous-dominated ecosystems.

The scope of the assignment is broad and complex, requiring a series of comprehensive and conceptually related phases and studies. The goals of the scientist’s research are to increase the understanding of the pattern and process of grassland vegetation responses to disturbances, such as fire and herbivory, and stressors, such as drought, climate variability, and climate change. Investigating the single and interactive effects of human- and natural- disturbances on the structure and function of the complex vegetation associated with grassland and open woodland ecosystems is challenging and requires research dedicated to identifying and understanding the mechanisms driving the changes in patterns and processes following disturbance and ecosystem stressors.

Grassland and open forest research encounters multiple interacting factors including soil, climate, plant species, types and degrees of disturbance, invasion, and diverse landownership. Research on plant-pollinator interactions and restoration of medicinally and culturally important plants will require foundational understanding in botany, entomology, and ethnobotany. Research broadly applicable to grasslands and open forests worldwide requires extensive research networks to conduct experiments across various soils, dominant vegetation types, and growing season conditions. Robust experimental designs with large datasets and complex statistics are needed to provide meaningful results in these multifaceted systems with numerable factors. Experiment development and implementation is further complicated due to the diverse stakeholder landscape of tribal, state, private, and federal entities, which often have multiple-use management goals. This patchwork of ownership and stakeholder groups across grasslands and open forests requires research providing novel adaptive management alternatives that improve decision making for public and private managers to provide a more holistic, landscape level management of grassland and shrubland ecosystems. Addressing these challenges requires creativity to develop applicable research projects for complex management situations, develop lab and field methods for proper hypothesis testing, and use novel ways to share the importance of results with a diverse cadre of end-users, from federal land managers and to private landowners.

The scientist may serve as an expert in the fields of grassland ecology, grassland conservation and management, pyric herbivory, plant-pollinator interactions, and ethnobotany. Expected results from this work answer important questions in the field; account for previously unexplained phenomena; open significant new avenues for further study; confirm or modify a scientific theory or methodology; and lead to important changes in existing products, methods, techniques, processes.

Major Duties

The scientist designs field studies and uses existing datasets to address issues of conservation and management concern of grasslands and open woodlands of the Central Hardwood region to assist managers in designing management and conservation strategies including plant-pollinator networks and the restoration of culturally significant plants. The scientist will develop a collaborative research program that addresses the needs of managers as well as addresses basic questions regarding plant community ecology and plant-pollinator interactions. Involvement of local, regional, national, and international research and management partners from public, private, tribal, and non-governmental institutions and organizations is critical to conducting and disseminating this research. The scientist cultivates these partnerships and forms interdisciplinary research teams to clarify and precisely define research problems. The expected impact of this research is improved understanding and predictability of ecosystem responses to disturbance and the development of management options and tools for land managers to maintain and improve ecosystem conditions. Research significance is reflected in the impact of research results on scientific theories, management practices, technologies, and policies and is often expressed in the citation frequency of published papers, acres of land influenced by the scientist’s research, invitations to present research results, and ability to attract extramural funding. The scientist disseminates scientific results through published literature and presentations. Technology transfer occurs via field days, consultations, written guides, and training workshops.