Wetlands ecological integrity monitoring protocol for Sierra Nevada Network: Narrative version 2.1

Gage, Edward; Nesmith, Jonathan; Chow, Leslie; Chung-MacCoubrey, Alice; Cooper, David; Eddy, Alex; Haultain, Sylvia; Holmquist, Jeff; Jones, Jennifer; Jones, Laura; McKinney, Shawn; Moore, Peggy; Mutch, Linda; Starcevich, Leigh Ann; Werner, Harold

The National Park Service, through its Vital Signs monitoring program, has been charged with developing a series of monitoring protocols to evaluate the condition and trend of key ecological resources in national parks. The Sierra Nevada Network identified 13 vital signs for long-term monitoring. Three of these pertain to wet meadow and fen ecosystems and include macroinvertebrate assemblages, wetland plant communities, and surface/groundwater dynamics. In this document, we present a protocol for monitoring these vital signs in wet meadows and fens, which we will refer to hereafter in the document as “wetlands”. The Sierra Nevada Network parks where this protocol is implemented include Yosemite National Park, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, and Devils Postpile National Monument. Following a standard format used by monitoring programs nationally, the protocol consists of two parts, a narrative section and a series of standard operating procedures (SOPs). The protocol narrative provides an overview of the vital signs monitoring program and detailed treatments of topics specific to the wetland monitoring protocol including specific monitoring objectives, statistical design, field data collection methods, crew safety, data management, and basic analysis and reporting. SOPs provide more specific guidance for protocol tasks, and are presented as a simplified series of steps intended to facilitate the task completion. The Wetlands Ecological Integrity monitoring project is designed to provide basic information on the condition of targeted wetlands (wet meadows and fens) and to allow for the evaluation of long-term trends of key ecological variables in Sierra Nevada parks. Biotic and abiotic variables are measured, with the expectation that some variables will react differently to potential anthropogenic stressors than others, thereby more effectively characterizing wetland ecological integrity. The protocol outlines field methods for sampling vascular and nonvascular plants, terrestrial and aquatic macroinvertebrates, and the groundwater hydrologic regime. Additional approaches including selected quantitative and qualitative condition assessment metrics, and the collection of photo points are also described. A spatially randomized survey design (Generalized Randomized Tessellated Stratification or GRTS) is used to develop park-wide inferences regarding fen and wet meadow ecological integrity (Stevens and Olsen 2004). Within watersheds, analysis of aerial photographs and existing data sets, such as the NPS vegetation map coverage and National Wetlands Inventory, are used to develop a sampling frame for wet meadows and fens across Park landscapes. GRTS is then used to select individual wetland points for site level evaluation. Sample sites selected through the GRTS design represent what we refer to as “extensive” sites that will be used to make inferences about the status and trend of wetland ecological integrity of SIEN park fens and wet meadows. One additional hand-picked “index” site in a prominent riparian meadow within Devils Postpile National Monument (DEPO) will be monitored by SIEN. This site will not be used in the analysis to assess wetland ecological integrity within the network parks, but will serve as an important case study of the largest and most visible wetland within DEPO. Similar index sites, which are not the responsibility of SIEN, have been established within the other SIEN parks because they represent areas of particular interest for the parks, such as areas that currently or historically experience high levels of use or have a history of previous research. Because index sites are often more accessible than extensive sites, they lend themselves to more frequent or intensive monitoring. The objectives and sampling procedures for these sites, however, are left up the individual parks and these procedures are not discussed in this document.

Wetlands ecological integrity monitoring protocol for Sierra Nevada Network: Narrative version 2.1

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