Bird community monitoring for Grand Canyon National Park: 2014 summary report

Holmes, Jennifer; Johnson, Matthew

The National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program was designed to determine the current status and monitor long-term trends in the condition of park natural resources, providing park managers with a strong scientific foundation for making decisions and working with other agencies and the public for the protection of park ecosystems. The goal of bird community monitoring is to provide status and trends data on bird communities in several predominant habitats where integrated upland or riparian vegetation monitoring is also occurring. For Grand Canyon National Park (GRCA), Southern Colorado Plateau Network (SCPN) and park staff selected the mixed conifer forest and pinyon-juniper woodland as important ecosystems for vegetation and bird community monitoring. Occurring at elevations above 2500 m (8,202 ft), mixed conifer forest occupied approximately 17,600 hectares on the North Rim of GRCA in the year 2000. Since then, large, stand-replacing fires (Figure 1) have reduced the amount of mature mixed conifer forest. This system is represented by a few extensive areas on the Colorado Plateau, but climate change and altered fire regimes threaten its integrity. GRCA’s pinyon-juniper woodlands are located on the South Rim of Grand Canyon; this ecological site represents large areas of the park and the surrounding landscape. In 2014, through a Colorado Plateau Cooperative Ecosystems Study Unit agreement with SCPN, we continued monitoring the upland bird community of the target mixed conifer habitat in GRCA, which had been initiated in 2007. We also continued monitoring in the target pinyon-juniper habitat, which had been initiated in 2011. In this report, we document monitoring activities in the 2014 field season and summarize the data that were collected.

Bird community monitoring for Grand Canyon National Park: 2014 summary report

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