Annual administrative report (FY 2012) and work plan (FY 2013) for inventories and Vital Signs monitoring: South Florida / Caribbean Network

National Park Service South Florida/Caribbean Network

The Annual Administrative Report and Workplan summarizes the activies of the National Park Service South Florida / Caribbean Network for FY12 and projected workplan for FY13. The South Florida/Caribbean Network (SFCN) includes seven national parks with significant natural resources in the southern tip of the state of Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands of St. Croix and St. John. In FY 2012 the SFCN received $2,117,355 from the Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) program, the NPS Vegetation Inventory Program (mapping), the NPS Water Resources Division, and from Everglades National Park. Together, these funding sources enabled the SFCN to develop vegetation and benthic habitat maps for several parks, begin development of Natural Resource Condition Assessments for Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve, and to continue operational monitoring for core vital signs. The SFCN includes Big Cypress National Preserve (BICY), Biscayne National Park (BISC), Buck Island Reef National Monument (BUIS), Dry Tortugas National Park (DRTO), Everglades National Park (EVER), Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve (SARI), and Virgin Islands National Park (VIIS). SFCN’s Vital Signs Monitoring Plan is focused on protocol development and monitoring for the areas that emerged as top priorities in the planning phase of the group’s establishment. The network completed its three year startup review in November, 2011. The review panel indicated that the network was indeed on the right track and making satisfactory progress towards vital signs monitoring as planned. Significant efforts were put forward by SFCN on Marine Fish Community monitoring in South Florida and St. Croix, Marine Benthic Community monitoring in all coral reef parks, Colonial Nesting Bird monitoring in South Florida, Coastal Geomorphology monitoring in BISC, Corridors of Invasiveness exotics monitoring in South Florida, Periphyton monitoring in BICY, and Ecotonal Movement monitoring in EVER and BICY. Additional effort has been focused on report development and automation of tasks, as well as continued data management. Considerable effort has taken place to revise our web presence, bringing the site towards compliance with new NPS web content policies. SFCN has successfully expanded our program by hiring a Natural Resource Condition Assessment ecologist and a Marine Research Assistant as well as two Student Conservation Association Interns (SCA’s) in FY12. The EVER vegetation map project has completed nearly all of the accuracy assessment field data collection, and nearly 20% of the terrestrial portion of the park has been mapped. Work continues on final reports and DVD bundled data deliverables for vegetation maps for western BICY, EVER, BISC, and VIIS. All SFCN National Park Service staff completed Operational Leadership training and SFCN Volunteer in Parks (VIPs) logged a total of 3,789.5 hours in FY12.

Annual administrative report (FY 2012) and work plan (FY 2013) for inventories and Vital Signs monitoring: South Florida / Caribbean Network

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