Alpine vegetation and soils monitoring in Yellowstone National Park: 2011–2016 data report

Tortorelli, Claire; Kuhn, Bernadette; Borgman, Erin; Stevens, Joe; Baldvins, Tom; Britten, Mike

In 2011, the Rocky Mountain and Greater Yellowstone networks, in cooperation with the Colorado Natural Heritage Program and Yellowstone National Park (NP), identified and installed long-term alpine vegetation and soils monitoring sites on four summits in Yellowstone NP following a protocol developed by the Global Observa-tion Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA).The goals of monitoring the Yellowstone NP summit sites are to determine the status and trends in vegetation composition and structure, soil condition, and soil temperature; to predict and assess community vulnerabilities; and to inform possible management actions. The Yellowstone NP summit sites cover a small area of alpine habitat within the park, and therefore monitoring does not necessarily reflect alpine vegetation across the park. However, a broader goal is to provide alpine monitoring data that provides context and comparisons to other alpine monitoring efforts in the Rocky Mountains, west-ern North America, and to the GLORIA network worldwide. The Yellowstone NP alpine monitoring sites were installed and monitored according to an adapted version of the GLORIA protocol in 2011, and they were resur-veyed according to the same protocol in 2016. In this report, we present a summary of 2016 monitoring efforts and compare vegetation and soils data between the 2011 and 2016 monitoring years. We found the following: ● In 2016, a total of about 127 vascular plant species were documented on the four Yellowstone NP monitoring summits. This includes 54 species that were not documented during the 2011 sampling effort. Recorded spe-cies richness increased on all summits between 2011 and 2016. However, future monitoring at these sites will help us understand whether species richness really is increasing or whether the increase was due (or partially due) to our increased understanding of what taxa to expect at these sites. ● Vegetative cover and dominant species in 1-m2 quadrats remained nearly constant between 2011 and 2016. ● In both years, the impact of non-native species within the monitoring sites was low with only one species (Taraxacum officinale) observed. Since the native T. officinale ceratophorum may occur in the area, a goal for future monitoring is to collect voucher specimens of T. officinale at the park to determine whether these are the native or exotic species, or a combination of both. Similarly in 2016, the field crew identified Bromus inermis in some plots. This may be the non-native or native taxon; this brome should be accurately identified before or during the next monitoring event to resolve the issue. ● Anthropogenic and natural disturbances were qualitatively assessed for all peaks in both years. We found little evidence of natural or anthropogenic disturbances within the monitoring sites during either monitoring cycle. ● There was no statistically significant change in soil temperature during the monitoring period. There was a statistically significant increase in some soil nutrients, including phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium, which could be a result of regional deposition.

Alpine vegetation and soils monitoring in Yellowstone National Park: 2011–2016 data report

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