Developing Predictive Capacity to Support Adaptive Management Strategies for Mountain Goats | P18AS00434

Opportunity Information: Apply for P18AS00434

The National Park Service (Department of the Interior) offered this cooperative agreement opportunity to build practical, management-ready forecasting tools for mountain goats in and around Glacier National Park. The core idea is to move beyond simply describing how goats are doing year to year and instead develop predictive capacity that helps managers anticipate how mountain goat populations may change in response to shifting environmental conditions. While Glacier National Park is the focal area, the project is explicitly framed to be relevant across neighboring alpine landscapes on adjacent state, federal, and tribal lands where mountain goats also occur, recognizing that goats and the drivers affecting them do not stop at park boundaries.

The project centers on connecting mountain goat population performance to measurable environmental variables, especially those tied to climate and seasonal conditions. A major objective is to link key demographic rates, including parturition (birth) rates, kid survival, and yearling survival, with indicators of body condition such as growth patterns and/or body mass for adult females and younger animals. These biological measures are meant to be evaluated alongside annual measurements of climate, snowpack, vegetation productivity, and the timing of plant green-up and senescence (vegetation phenology), particularly on important summer ranges where nutrition and foraging conditions can strongly influence reproduction and survival. In other words, the work aims to quantify how good or bad years for snow and plants translate into good or bad years for goat health and recruitment.

A second objective focuses more directly on nutrition by relating what goats actually assimilate (the nutritional intake they effectively absorb and can use) to vegetation productivity and phenology. This is intended to tighten the link between habitat conditions and animal performance by going beyond broad habitat descriptions and addressing the nutritional pathway that likely drives body condition, reproductive success, and survival. A third objective complements this by relating vegetation and snow conditions back to broader annual climatic conditions, essentially building a chain of relationships from climate to snow and plant dynamics, and then from those dynamics to goat nutrition and demography. Together, these linkages are meant to support models that can forecast outcomes under different climate and seasonal scenarios.

The final objective emphasizes understanding where goats are on the landscape and how that relates to productivity and mortality. The opportunity calls for documenting habitat use at a fine scale during summer, when goats are typically using alpine and subalpine foraging areas and may be especially sensitive to plant phenology and heat or insect stress, and at a coarser scale during winter, when movement can be more constrained and mortality risks may shift toward avalanche exposure, limited forage access, or energetically costly conditions. By pairing seasonal habitat-use information with demographic and condition data, the project is designed to clarify patterns and potential sources of mortality and to explain why productivity varies among years or areas.

Administratively, this was a discretionary funding opportunity offered as a cooperative agreement, indicating expected substantial involvement or coordination with the National Park Service rather than a simple pass-through grant. It was limited to eligible applicants from public and state-controlled institutions of higher education. The opportunity number was P18AS00434 under CFDA 15.945, with an award ceiling of $55,000 and an expectation of one award. The posting date was July 16, 2018, with an original closing date of July 25, 2018, reflecting a short application window and a targeted, scoped effort.

In practical terms, the opportunity is about building an integrated, evidence-based framework that ties together climate, snowpack, vegetation timing and productivity, goat nutrition, seasonal habitat use, and the demographic rates that ultimately determine whether mountain goat populations grow, decline, or shift distribution. The intended deliverable is not just more monitoring data, but a predictive foundation that can support adaptive management decisions as environmental conditions continue to change in Glacier National Park and the surrounding alpine regions.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Developing Predictive Capacity to Support Adaptive Management Strategies for Mountain Goats" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.945.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 16, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 25, 2018. (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 $55,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for P18AS00434

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