Integrated upland monitoring in Dinosaur National Monument: annual report 2011 (non-sensitive version)
Witwicki D. 2013. Integrated upland monitoring in Dinosaur National Monument: annual report 2011 (non-sensitive version). Natural Resource Technical Report. NPS/NCPN/NRTR—2013/712.N. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
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 provide early warning of resource degradation and determine natural variability of upland resources. This report summarizes NCPN upland monitoring in Dinosaur National Monument (NM) during 2011. 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, and 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 an understanding of natural 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 2011, all 40 plots were revisited. In this report, measures from 2011 were summarized for each vegetation type. Early monitoring data describe status of vegetation types; interpretation is limited until additional data are acquired and more rigorously analyzed after at least five years of monitoring are complete. Future monitoring activities include 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 was implemented in 2012.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Witwicki, Dana
- Date of Issue
- 2013-03
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- DINO , NCPN , NRSS
- Keywords
- Monitoring, NCPN Uplands Monitoring, Plant Studies, Upland, Uplands