BIRD COMMUNITY COMPOSITION AND SITE OCCUPANCY DYNAMICS IN THE NPS ERMN | P17AS00127

Opportunity Information: Apply for P17AS00127

The grant opportunity titled "BIRD COMMUNITY COMPOSITION AND SITE OCCUPANCY DYNAMICS IN THE NPS ERMN" (Funding Opportunity Number P17AS00127) is a discretionary National Park Service action under the Department of the Interior that supports ongoing science and technology research and development focused on long-term bird monitoring. Rather than being a new, open competition, it is the second modification to a task agreement that was originally executed in 2014. The intent is to continue work that is already underway, using the same project design, field protocols, and analytical framework that were established in the cooperator's original proposal and the formal Statement of Work.

This modification continues funding for data collection and analysis tied to a long-term avian monitoring program in the National Park Service ERMN, which in this context refers to a Network-level monitoring effort within the NPS inventory and monitoring framework. The project emphasis is on tracking bird community composition and understanding site occupancy dynamics over time, which typically means documenting which species are present across monitored locations and estimating how species presence changes from year to year as conditions shift. Long-term monitoring of this kind is commonly used to detect trends, evaluate ecosystem health, and inform park management decisions by providing consistent, comparable data across seasons and years.

A central reason for issuing the modification is continuity. The National Park Service selected Dr. David Miller of Pennsylvania State University to continue leading the work so that the program maintains consistent data collection standards, field methods, and analytical approaches. In practical terms, this signals that the agency views methodological stability as essential for reliable long-term trend detection, since changes in personnel, protocols, or analytical techniques can introduce differences that look like ecological change but are actually artifacts of measurement. Keeping the same lead and maintaining established procedures helps ensure that results remain comparable with prior years of monitoring under the original 2014 agreement.

Administratively, the opportunity is structured as a cooperative agreement, reflecting that the work is expected to involve collaboration between the National Park Service and the academic partner rather than operating purely as a hands-off grant. The eligible applicant category is limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, consistent with the selection of Pennsylvania State University. The listing includes CFDA number 15.945 and identifies an anticipated single award, with an award ceiling of $65,891. The posting explicitly notes there is no application closing date because this is not a request for applications; it is a modification to a previously competed agreement, meaning the competitive process happened earlier and the current action is an extension or adjustment within that established award framework.

In short, this funding action is best understood as a continuation payment and scope extension within an existing, competitively established partnership, designed to keep a long-term bird monitoring effort running smoothly and consistently. The modification preserves the integrity of the monitoring record by supporting the same investigator and methods, enabling the National Park Service to build a coherent time series of data on bird communities and occupancy patterns across the ERMN monitoring area.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BIRD COMMUNITY COMPOSITION AND SITE OCCUPANCY DYNAMICS IN THE NPS ERMN" 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 Mar 16, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by This is not a request for applications. This is a modification to a previously competed agreement.. (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 $65,891.00 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 P17AS00127

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