Mountain Prairie provides biological information organized by geography and by theme. Go directly to featured projects below, or use the menu to navigate the site.
Brucellosis Learn why this disease is of special concern of ranchers in this region and investigate the resulting implications for maintaining our free-ranging elk and bison herds.
Carbon Sequestration Learn about the promise of ongoing research and technologies to help mitigate for climate change through regional capture of carbon dioxide emissions.
Children's Butterfly Site Enjoy photographs, print coloring book pages, and explore the life cycle of butterflies and moths.
Climate Science Investigate how climate variability drives ecosystem structure and function, and learn how variability data can be used to assist decision-making.
Trumpeter Swans Track neck collars, use decision support models for management, and learn about the largest waterfowl in North America.
Whirling Disease Discover how a tiny European parasite with a complex life cycle is damaging ecosystems in the west.
Whitebark Pine Investigate monitoring efforts in Greater Yellowstone and learn about this ecologically important high-elevation species.
The Big Sky Institute at Montana State University is an interdisciplinary center dedicated to creating, applying, and communicating science-based knowledge. The BSI Ecological Informatics Lab brings together natural sciences, geographic information systems (GIS), statistics, modeling, information technology, and computational programming with a comprehensive goal of making ecological data more useful to society.
Mountain Prairie Region
[Image: Aaron Jones, Big Sky Institute]
Highlights from Mountain Prairie News
Mountain Prairie News Timely news about natural resources in the Mountain Prairie Region of Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
Hagadone submits new proposal to replace Idaho marina Hagadone Real Estate Holding scrapped its 2005 proposal to excavate and replace the Blackwell Island Marina on the man-made island in Coeur d'Alene due to concerns about the project's effect on water quality, and has now submitted an entirely new application for the project to the Idaho Department of Lands and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Coeur d'Alene Press
Colombia coal mine a treasure trove of fossils The discovery of a species of snake larger than a school bus that ruled northern South America 60 million years ago is just one of the fossils found in a coal mine in northeastern Colombia, and paleontologists believe they have more than another decade of fossil finds to unearth. Washington Post
Developer, Montana landowners reach accord on MATL Tonbridge Power Inc. announced Tuesday that it had reached a deal with the four Montana landowners for easements to allow the Montana-Alberta Tie Line, a transmission line between Great Falls, Mont. and Lethbridge, Alberta, to cross their lands, but the developer has yet to ink deals with Alberta landowners in the path of the project. Great Falls Tribune
Conservationists hope ESA change will ax Oregon logging plans Environmental groups said they hoped that President Obama's new directive on the Endangered Species Act will curb the Bureau of Land Management's plan to increase logging in western Oregon. Portland Oregonian (AP)
Obama memo orders agencies to review species act change President Obama issued a memorandum that orders the Interior and Commerce departments to review a Dec. 16 change to the Endangered Species Act that allowed federal agencies to skip an independent review of how federal projects could affect endangered plants and wildlife, effectively reinstating the previous requirement that such a review be conducted. New York Times
