Upper Columbia Basin Network aspen monitoring annual report 2010: Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve (CRMO)
Strand EK, Bunting SC, Starcevich LA. 2011. Upper Columbia Basin Network aspen monitoring annual report 2010: Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve (CRMO). Natural Resource Technical Report. NPS/UCBN/NRTR—2011/456. National Park Service, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science. Fort Collins, Colorado
Quaking aspen is one particularly high priority vital sign for two Upper Columbia Basin Network (UCBN) parks, City of Rocks National Reserve (CIRO) and Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve (CRMO). This annual report details the 2010 status estimates in CRMO and a statistical change analysis comparing sampled stands in CRMO in 2007 and 2010. The Upper Columbia Basin Network (UCBN) has identified 14 priority vital signs, indicators of ecosystem health, which represent a broad suite of ecological phenomena operating across multiple temporal and spatial scales. Aspen is a focal resource at CIRO and CRMO because of its biological and aesthetic significance. Although aspen comprise only a small percentage of the land cover in the parks, the community type contributes significantly to species diversity and richness. The methods presented in this report reflect version 1.0 of the aspen protocol (Strand et al. 2009). The majority of the aspen stands sampled in CRMO in 2010 is regenerating and contain a distribution of age classes. There are however stands with relatively low aspen stem densities, low regeneration, and/or high numbers of dead aspen stems. The data from 2007 and 2010 were tested for a change in stem counts of aspen and conifers within size groups, rather than a linear trend because only two years of data are currently available. Zero-inflation models were applied for the conifer analysis because of the large number of plots that contained zero conifer stems. As more monitoring data become available, more complex models may be applied. Plot-level covariates were included in the analysis because they may be useful for modeling the mean structure of aspen stem counts.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Strand, Eva; Bunting, Stephen; Starcevich, Leah
- Date of Issue
- 2011-06
- Publisher
- National Park Service, Natural Resource Stewardship and Science
- Units
- CRMO , NRSS , UCBN
- Keywords
- Aspen, Aspen Monitoring, Monitoring