Wetland Monitoring at Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Bingham, Sonia; Marcum, Douglas; Miller, Kate; Brown, James

Wetlands provide numerous ecological services. Wetlands are important sites of biodiversity, providing habitat for nearly half of all endangered species. As natural floodwater storage sites, wetlands store and assimilate nutrients and reduce stream erosion and storm water-caused flooding. Unfortunately, over half of the wetlands in the United States have been destroyed over the past two centuries. Roughly 90% of wetlands in Ohio have been eliminated. Monitoring Questions & Approach -Document the status, trends, and natural variability of plant community composition parameters (i.e. richness, abundance, tolerance) in selected wetland types. -Wetlands intensively surveyed using the Vegetation Index of Biotic Integrity (Mack 2004) on a 5-year rotating panel. Panel includes randomly select wetlands, wetlands of management concern and reference wetlands. -Document the status, trends and natural variability of local and watershed-level environmental variables potentially influencing wetland condition such as water depth, temperature, chemistry and land use. -Chemistry, habitat, and hydrological data will be collected to evaluate relationships with plant composition. Reference sites sampled annually to track natural trends from year to year. -Document the status and trends in the relative abundance of invasive species in wetland communities. -General locations and size of invasive plant populations will be documented in plots and tracked over time.

Wetland Monitoring at Cuyahoga Valley National Park

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