Vital Signs Monitoring Plan Phase II Report Northeast Temperate Network

Shriver, Greg; Dieffenbach, Fred; Faber-Langendoen, Don; Teirney, Geraldine; Lombard, Pam; Gibbs, James

The National Park Service (NPS) initiated a new “Vital Signs” program in 1998 to develop comprehensive, long-term monitoring of ecological resources within U.S. national parks. Vital signs are indicators, and are defined as are a subset of physical, chemical, and biological elements and processes of park ecosystems that are selected to represent the overall health or condition of park resources, known or hypothesized effects of stressors, or elements that have important human values. This report documents the progress of the Northeastern Temperate Network in implementing the first two Phases of this program. In Phase 1, baseline inventories and analysis of threats provided information to build conceptual ecological models for four ecosystem groups – terrestrial, wetland, aquatic, and intertidal systems. In Phase 2, the core science team developed a list of more than 100 potential vital signs. This preliminary list was peer-reviewed to develop a final list of 23 high priority vital signs, with 104 associated potential measures. In Phase 3, protocols will be developed for groups of vital signs. To ensure that the final set of measured vital signs produce reliable inference within cost constraints of NETN, statistical power analyses and cost assessments will be an integral part of Phase 3. Because timely reporting and communication is a primary component of a successful monitoring program, we will incorporate standard summaries of statistical trends in vital signs measures after each implementation period. We will also develop a rating scheme to allow integration of vital signs into an overall ecological integrity rank for particular occurrences of an ecosystem. The ranks can be used as part of an “Ecological Integrity Scorecard” that provides an important communication tool for adaptive management, which requires that information be communicated in a way that informs management decisions and can be understood by a diverse audience.