Jewel Cave National Monument plant community composition and structure monitoring: 2011 annual report.

Ashton, Isabel; Prowatzke, Michael; Bynum, 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 Jewel Cave National Monument (JECA). We sampled herbaceous vegetation at 6 long-term monitoring plots in July and recorded a total of 160 vascular plant species. This effort was the first year in a multiple-year venture to understand the status of plant communities in JECA. At the end of 5 years, there will be an indepth report describing the status of the plant community in JECA. In collaboration with the Northern Great Plains Fire Ecology Program we visited an additional 60 plots to monitor forest health and fuels-- the results of that effort will be described in a separate report. In this report, we provide a simple summary of our results from herbaceous plant 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 JECA had a large diversity of vascular plants. Average native species richness in the 10 m 2 quadrats was 19 species. The relative cover of exotic species across the sites was quite low, at only 11%. • Large ponderosa snags and other evidence of fire were present at all of the sites. Western serviceberry and black chokecherry seedlings were abundant in some areas. • None of the 6 plots we visited had any evidence of mountain pine beetles, and only 1 live ponderosa (of 78 measured) showed evidence of dieback.

Jewel Cave National Monument plant community composition and structure monitoring: 2011 annual report.

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