Technical Report

2018 Report for the Los Lunas Habitat Restoration Project; 16 Years of Monitoring

URL: https://webapps.usgs.gov/mrgescp/documents/Siegle-and-Ahlers_2019_2018-Report-for-the-Los-Lunas-Habitat-Restoration-Project-16-Years-of-Monitoring.pdf

Date: 2019/05/01

Author(s): Siegle R., Ahlers D.

Publication: Prepared for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation, 59 p.

Abstract:

Riparian cottonwood (Populus spp.) and willow (Salix spp.) forests are an important ecosystem in the Southwestern United States, providing fish and wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and watershed protection (Hultine et al. 2010). Native riparian habitat is used by a wide range of species and in the southwest about 60 percent of all vertebrate species and 70 percent of all threatened and endangered species are riparian obligates (Poff et al. 2012). Along the Middle Rio Grande in central New Mexico, the federally endangered southwestern willow flycatcher (Empidonax traillii extimus; SWFL) and threatened western yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus; YBCU) are species of particular concern that are dependent on riparian habitat. The destruction of riparian habitats has caused severe declines in these populations, which exist only in fragmented and scattered locations throughout their historic range (USFWS 1997, USFWS 2013).