Plant community composition and structure monitoring for Badlands National Park: 2012 annual report

Ashton IW, Prowatzke M, Swanson D, Greave P, Wilson SK. 2013. Plant community composition and structure monitoring for Badlands National Park: 2012 annual report. Natural Resource Technical Report. NPS/NGPN/NRTR—2013/674. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado

Badlands National Park (BADL) plays a vital role in protecting and managing one of the largest protected mixed-grass prairies in the United States. The Northern Great Plains Inventory & Monitoring Network and Fire Ecology Program surveyed 26 long-term monitoring plots in BADL in 2012 as part of an effort to better understand the condition of plant communities in the park. We measured plant diversity and cover, looked for the presence of exotic species that are of concern to park management, and evaluated the amount of human and natural disturbance at all plots. This effort was the second year in a multiple-year venture to document the current status and long-term trends in plant communities in BADL. At the end of five years, there will be an indepth report describing the status of the plant community. In this report, we provide a simple summary of our results from sampling in 2012. We found BADL to be characterized by moderate native species richness that falls within a natural range of variability for northern mixed-grass prairie. There are a few areas of the park that fall below this range and others that are quite diverse. Half of the sites visited in 2012 had exotic cover at or above 10% cover. Sweet clover and annual bromes present a large challenge to BADL. More research on effective management strategies in the mixed-grass prairie is greatly needed and to retain ecological integrity it is important to continue efforts to reduce the cover of invasive plants. Allowing natural disturbances such as fire, grazing, and prairie dog use may be critical to maintaining plant diversity in BADL, but it should be balanced with the need to protect intact native communities and prevent further invasions of exotic species. Continued monitoring efforts will be critical to track changes in the condition of the vegetation communities in BADL.

Type
Published Report
Authors
Ashton, Isabel; Prowatzke, Michael; Swanson, Dan; Greave, Phil; Wilson, Stephen
Date of Issue
2013-01
Publisher
National Park Service
Units
BADL , NGPN , NRSS
Keywords
Grasslands, mixed-grass prairie, Monitoring, monitoring report, plant community monitor, Plant community monitoring, Plant diversity, Vegetation

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