Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Idaho
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Over the past 4 years, the USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP) has been strategically
focusing on producing and applying national data for advancing conservation science
including land cover data, species ranges and distribution models as well as protected
areas data. With the support of partners, such as the University of Idaho, GAP has
achieved its goal of building consistent national datasets and making them available to
view and download via the web. In addition, GAP and its partners have been involved
with cooperative projects to apply GAP data to conservation science within the US. For example, through GAP’s partners at the University of Idaho, GAP’s land cover, protected
areas data, and Alaska bird ranges were applied to the State of the Birds Report 2011,
which reported on the use of public lands and waters by birds through the U.S. This
report has been widely distributed within the U.S. Congress and personnel in federal
agencies.
GAP has experienced a renewed interest in its data and we propose to continue to apply
GAP data to advance conservation science. We propose to continue the effort to
complete species ranges and distribution models for the U.S., as well as update and refine
the land cover data. We also propose to assess the status of biodiversity within the US
with regards to its current and future representation within in our protected areas network
and to examine the type and level of threats that exist for conserving biodiversity.
Overall our goal is to show how conservation science can be advanced through the
application of GAP data.