Restoring Biotic Diversity in Lehmann Lovegrass Dominated Grasslands | P18AS00306

Opportunity Information: Apply for P18AS00306

The grant opportunity "Restoring Biotic Diversity in Lehmann Lovegrass Dominated Grasslands" (Funding Opportunity Number P18AS00306) is a National Park Service research effort focused on improving restoration outcomes in grasslands heavily invaded by Lehmann lovegrass (Eragrostis lehmanniana). Because past attempts to eradicate this invasive grass have largely failed, the project shifts away from broad, eradication-first approaches and instead evaluates a more targeted, ecological strategy intended to rebuild native diversity where the invader dominates. The central idea is that working intensively in smaller, high-value microsites can create better conditions for native plants to re-establish, even if full landscape-wide removal of Lehmann lovegrass is not realistic.

The specific restoration concept being tested is the "fertile island" approach. Fertile islands are small patches that tend to have higher soil fertility, more organic matter, and better moisture retention than surrounding areas, often because they accumulate litter, nutrients, and seed over time. In invaded systems, these patches can function as leverage points for restoration because they may be more responsive to interventions like selective removal, seeding, or soil surface amendments. Rather than treating large areas uniformly, this project tests whether concentrating effort on these islands can produce measurable gains in native plant establishment and potentially reduce the dominance of Lehmann lovegrass in and around treated patches.

The research is set up as a nested, randomized, factorial field experiment carried out in two National Park Service units in southeastern Arizona: Coronado National Memorial (often abbreviated as CORO) and Chiricahua National Monument (CHIR). Using two locations increases the practical value of the findings because it helps determine whether results are consistent across different site conditions, which is important for management decisions in the region. The factorial design means multiple treatments are combined in a structured way, allowing the researchers to test not just the individual effects of each treatment, but also whether certain combinations work better together than they do alone.

Three categories of treatments are being evaluated. First, there are two Lehmann lovegrass management treatments: hand pulling (active removal) and no action (a control). Second, there are three seeding treatments aimed at reintroducing or boosting native plants: broadcast seeding, pelletized seed application, and no seeding. Pelletized seed is often used in restoration to improve seed-to-soil contact, protect seed from predation, and sometimes include binding agents or nutrients that enhance germination, so comparing it with traditional broadcast seeding is a practical, management-relevant question. Third, there are three amendment treatments intended to modify the soil surface environment and potentially improve germination and establishment: pine mulch, Lehmann thatch, and no amendment. Pine mulch can influence moisture retention and temperature buffering, while using Lehmann thatch is a way to test whether the invader's own litter layer suppresses or possibly facilitates establishment depending on conditions.

Project monitoring is a core piece of the work. The plots will be tracked for establishment and performance of both native plants and Lehmann lovegrass, which matters because successful restoration is not just about getting natives to sprout, but also about whether the invader rebounds quickly and overwhelms them. The emphasis is on generating evidence about whether these treatments can produce demonstrable increases in native plant species presence and/or decreases in Lehmann lovegrass abundance within grasslands that are currently dominated by the invasive species. In other words, the project is designed to answer a very applied management question: among realistic field techniques, which ones actually move the system toward higher biotic diversity, and which ones do not justify the effort.

The stated objectives are straightforward and tied to deliverables. The first objective is to establish fertile island research plots at both CORO and CHIR using a rigorous experimental design, ensuring the study can support defensible conclusions. The second objective is to monitor those plots over one field season and build a dataset describing how the different treatment combinations affect vegetation outcomes. The third objective is to publish the results in the public domain, meaning the findings are intended to be accessible and usable by land managers, researchers, and other stakeholders dealing with similar invasions.

Administratively, this opportunity was offered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, under a discretionary cooperative agreement. Eligible applicants were limited to public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, which signals that the agency expected an academic or university-based research partner to carry out the work in collaboration with the Park Service. The funding opportunity was created on June 11, 2018, with an original closing date of June 20, 2018, reflecting a short application window typical of some targeted, partner-driven research awards. The award ceiling was $39,987, with an expectation of a single award, indicating a small, focused project intended to produce timely, field-tested guidance rather than a large multi-year program.

Overall, the grant centers on a practical restoration experiment in invaded park grasslands, testing whether concentrating management within fertile islands and combining removal, seeding methods, and surface amendments can measurably improve native plant establishment while reducing Lehmann lovegrass dominance. The intended outcome is clear: produce publishable, publicly available results that help determine which on-the-ground techniques are most likely to restore at least part of the lost biotic diversity in these heavily invaded systems.

• The Department of the Interior, National Park Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Restoring Biotic Diversity in Lehmann Lovegrass Dominated Grasslands" 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 Jun 11, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 20, 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 $39,987.00 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.

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