Devils Tower National Monument plant community composition and structure monitoring: 2011 annual report

Ashton, Isabel; Prowatzke, Michael; Bynumm, Michael; 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 Devils Tower National Monument (DETO). We visited 8 long-term monitoring plots on July 11-14th and August 15-17th, 2011, and recorded a total of 161 vascular plant species. This effort was the first year in a multiple-year venture to understand the status of upland and riparian lowland plant communities in DETO. 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: • Absolute vascular plant cover was high due to a wet spring, and grasses and sedges made up the bulk of vascular plant cover at all sites. • The sites at DETO had a moderate diversity of vascular plants compared to other parks in the network. Average native species richness in the 10 m 2 quadrats was 13 ± 5.4 species. • There was a large variation in the species composition of the forested plots that we visited in DETO. Ponderosa pine was the most common component of upland plots, but we also encountered bur oak, boxelder, and cottonwood, with the latter two species occurring mostly in riparian plots. None of the live ponderosa pine trees we surveyed in 2011 showed signs of insects or decay. • Floods in the spring contributed to very high seedling densities in the riparian plots. • Exotic species occurred in all plots we visited and the relative cover of exotics species was 27% across the plots. We did not detect 3 of the targeted exotic species in any plot. Leafy spurge, the most ubiquitous exotic target species, was found at 6 sites, but in low abundance.

Devils Tower National Monument plant community composition and structure monitoring: 2011 annual report

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