Integrated upland monitoring in Dinosaur National Monument: annual report 2009–2010 (non-sensitive version)

Witwicki, Dana

The goal of the Northern Colorado Plateau Network (NCPN) integrated upland monitoring effort is to provide park managers with status and trend information on vegetation and soil attributes. This information is intended to determine natural variability of upland resources and provide early warning of resource degradation. This report summarizes NCPN upland monitoring in Dinosaur National Monument (NM) during 2009 and 2010. It outlines goals and objectives of NCPN upland monitoring, methods of the upland monitoring protocol, and procedures for defining and mapping target populations for monitoring. This report also describes the results of this year’s efforts and plans for future monitoring. Upland monitoring was initiated at Dinosaur NM in 2009. Based on discussions with park resource staff, sagebrush and pinyon-juniper (PJ) were selected for monitoring. Sagebrush was additionally stratified by two elevation zones and by grazing status, for a total of four vegetation types monitored in sagebrush. For all vegetation types, eight plots will be monitored for three consecutive years to gain understanding of variability. Assessment of these data will guide development of an operational sampling design. In 2009, thirty-five monitoring plots were established and monitored. In 2010, an additional five pinyon-juniper plots were established and monitored, and the first 35 plots were revisited. In this report, measures were summarized for each vegetation type by year. The only analysis performed was an ordination of species cover. Results of this ordination indicated a high degree of overlap between the four sagebrush site types and good separation between PJ and sagebrush sites. Early monitoring data describe status of vegetation types; interpretation will be limited until additional data are acquired and more rigorously analyzed. Future monitoring activities include (1) re-measuring the 40 existing upland plots in 2011 and (2) formulating an operational survey design for each vegetation type, using variance measures in conjunction with desired levels of minimum detectable change, as derived from the three years of pilot monitoring data. The full monitoring design will be implemented in 2012.

Integrated upland monitoring in Dinosaur National Monument: annual report 2009–2010 (non-sensitive version)

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