Fort Laramie National Historic Site plant community composition and structure monitoring: 2011 annual report.

Ashton IW, Prowatzke M, Bynum M, Shepherd T, Wilson SK, Paintner-Green K. 2012. Fort Laramie National Historic Site plant community composition and structure monitoring: 2011 annual report.. Natural Resource Technical Report. NPS/NGPN/NRTR—2012/536. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado

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 Fort Laramie National Historic Site (FOLA). We visited 5 long-term monitoring plots on June 13-16th, 2011, and recorded a total of 84 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 FOLA. 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 FOLA had a low to moderate diversity of vascular plants compared to other grasslands in the network. Average native species richness in the 10 m 2 quadrats was 7 ± 3.6 species (mean ± standard deviation). • Exotic species occurred in all plots we visited and the relative cover of exotics species was 54% across the plots. Houndstongue and Scotch thistle were the only 2 target exotic species we encountered and they were found in only 1 site in low abundance.

Type
Published Report
Authors
Ashton, Isabel; Prowatzke, Michael; Bynum, Michael; Shepherd, Timothy; Wilson, Stephen; Paintner-Green, Kara
Date of Issue
2012-02
Publisher
National Park Service
Units
FOLA , NGPN , NRSS
Keywords
Grasslands, Monitoring, monitoring report, plant community monitor, Plant community monitoring, Plant diversity, Vegetation

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