Rocky Mountain Network Vegetation Composition Structure and Soils Monitoring Protocol: Small Park Grasslands, Shrublands, and Woodlands Version 1.0
Manier DD, Shorrock D, Schweiger EW, Ashton I, Frakes B, Britten M, Pillmore D, Burke J. 2011. Rocky Mountain Network Vegetation Composition Structure and Soils Monitoring Protocol: Small Park Grasslands, Shrublands, and Woodlands Version 1.0. Natural Resource Report. NPS/ROMN/NRR—2011/383. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
The Rocky Mountain Inventory & Monitoring Network (ROMN) includes a wide range ofbiophysical environments, ranging from mountain peaks down through evergreen and deciduous forests to western grasslands of the North American Great Plains. Here, we present a protocol to monitor vegetation and surface soils within the three smaller units of the Network (Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, and Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument) that are characterized by grassland, shrubland, and woodland ecosystems.The Vegetation Composition, Structure, and Soils (VCSS) protocol for small parks wasdeveloped through the integration and adaptation of the approaches of several other nationalinventory programs and through rigorous field testing. The primary objectives of the VCSSprotocol are to:1. Determine status and trend in vegetation structure, species composition, and diversity ingrassland, shrubland, and woodland ecosystems* within Network small parks.2. Determine status and trends in abundance of invasive/exotic plant taxa in these areasbased on park-specific lists of likely and ecologically significant invaders at each park.3. Determine the status and trend in soil condition in grassland, shrubland, and woodlands*of each park based on measures of 1) dynamic properties such as soil stability, extent ofnon-vegetated soils, and erosion and 2) inherent properties including physical texture,composition and soil chemistry.*excluding high visitor use areas, developed infrastructure, culturally sensitive locations, and unsafe or inaccessible sitesA long-term goal of the Network is to develop quantitative methods to assess ecosystem integrity and health through the development of bioassessment models that will incorporate reference condition distributions and identify both temporal and spatial departures from these distributions within a park. While such methods are common in aquatic systems, this will be one of the first applications of these models in terrestrial vegetated systems and thus will only be developed after robust and long-term data sets from this protocol are in place.To meet the VCSS objectives and to accurately describe the population of grassland, shrubland, and woodland systems within the three smaller parks, we use spatially balanced probabilistic surveys for our sample design. Sample frames are based on soil map units, implemented throughout the entire park, and a paneled structure is used to allow both status and trend estimates. Our monitoring targets systematically exclude primary management and visitor use areas, sensitive resource areas, and any infrastructure, such as roads, trails and buildings, associated with these activities. Therefore, our objectives and results are applicable to the expanse of “natural” ecosystems within each park.The field methods at each site call for a combination of transects and plots to structure sampling of vegetation and soil within a 0.5 hectare circular sample area. We include systematic, repeated measurements of vegetation structure and composition, abundance of invasive species, dynamic soil surface properties (including soil stability, sheet and gully erosion and mineral soil exposure), and less frequently sampled inherent soil properties (such as nutrient levels and texture) as indicators of ecological integrity. In addition to the future development of bioassessment models, we use the data to describebaseline conditions, examine change over time, describe spatial variability within and acrossparks, and correlate changes in vegetation and soil with climate and landscape-level drivers. The ROMN VCSS protocol provides robust methods for measuring change in grassland, shrubland, and woodland vegetation and soils in the parks and data that can be used in collaboration with other networks and programs to monitor grassland, shrubland and woodland vegetation and soils across the region.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Manier, Daniel; Shorrock, Donna; Schweiger, E; Ashton, Isabel; Frakes, Brent; Britten, Mike; Pillmore, David; Burke, J
- Date of Issue
- 2011-04
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- FLFO , GRKO , IMDP , LIBI , NRSS , ROMN
- Keywords
- Ecological Monitoring, Florissant Fossil Beds, Grant-Kohrs Ranch, Grasslands, herbaceous vegetation, I&M, Inventory And Monitoring, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Long Term Monitoring, Plant Communities, plant composition, plant cover, Plant diversity, Rocky Mountain, ROMN, Shrublands, Soil Chemistry, Soil Erosion, Soils, VCSSProtocol, Vegetation, Vegetation cover, Vegetation diversity, Woodland Communites, Woodlands
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Geology and Soils | Soil Quality | Soil Function and Dynamics , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Invasive Species | Invasive/Exotic plants , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Grassland/Herbaceous Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Shrubland Communities , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Forest/Woodland Communities