Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site plant community composition and structure monitoring: 2011 annual report

Ashton, Isabel; Prowatzke, Michael; Buynum, Michael; Shepherd, Timothy; Wilson, Stephen; Paintner-Green, Kara

The Northern Great Plains Inventory & Monitoring Network (NGPN) was established to develop and provide scientifically credible information on the current status and long-term trends of the composition, structure, and function of ecosystems in thirteen parks located in 5 northern Great Plains states. NGPN identified upland plant communities, exotic plant early detection, and riparian lowland communities as vital signs that can be used to better understand the condition of terrestrial park ecosystems. Upland and riparian ecosystems are important targets for vegetation monitoring because the status and trends in plant communities provide critical insights into the status and trends of other biotic components within those ecosystems. In 2011, NGPN began plant community monitoring in Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site (KNRI). We visited 8 long-term monitoring plots from July 25-28th, 2011, and recorded a total of 117 vascular plant species. This effort was the first year in a multiple-year venture to understand the status of upland plant communities in KNRI. At the end of 5 years, there will be an in-depth report describing the status of the plant community. In this report, we provide a simple summary of our results from sampling in 2011. We found the following: • KNRI grasslands were highly productive compared to other grasslands in NGPN. The absolute vascular plant cover was very high which was likely due to a wet spring. Grasses and sedges made up the bulk of vascular plant cover at all sites. Bare soil made up a relatively low portion of ground cover • The sites at KNRI had a low to moderate diversity of native plants compared to other grasslands in the network. Average native species richness in the 10 m2 plots was 8.2 ± 5.23 species (mean ± standard deviation). Forbs, or broad-leaved herbaceous plants, were more diverse than grasses and sedges in these plots, despite making up less of the total cover. • Exotic species occurred in all plots we visited and the relative cover of exotics species was 62.3 ± 30.5 % across the plots. Kentucky bluegrass and smooth brome were particularly abundant. • In the 3 plots we visited with woody species, we found few live healthy trees. Snags and trees with considerable dieback were common. There was a high density of seedlings in 2 of these sites. • While the majority of plant community monitoring plots at KNRI in 2011 had evidence of recent disturbance, resource management was successful at removing all target exotic species in an area that was recently seeded with native grasses. We did not document any sites in the park where an exotic target species made up greater than 5% of plant cover.

Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site plant community composition and structure monitoring: 2011 annual report

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