Integrated Upland Vegetation and Soils Monitoring for Mesa Verde National Park: 2008 Summary Report
DeCoster JK and Swan MC. 2009. Integrated Upland Vegetation and Soils Monitoring for Mesa Verde National Park: 2008 Summary Report. Natural Resource Data Series. NPS/SCPN/NRDS—2009/019. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
The Southern Colorado Plateau Network (SCPN) is monitoring vegetation and soils as overall indicators of upland ecosystem integrity. The SCPN Upland Monitoring crew began monitoring at Mesa Verde National Park (MEVE) in 2007 with the establishment of ten plots in the Loamy Mesa Top Pinyon-Juniper ecological site. Field methodology is provided in detail in the SCPN Integrated Upland Protocol (DeCoster et al., in review). SCPN plans to sample the quadrats and gap intercept transects annually for 3-5 years to determine the range of temporal variability for key metrics. Power analysis will then be used to determine the total number of plots necessary to detect change in the key metrics. This report documents monitoring activities in the 2008 field season and compares these data with the data collected in 2007.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- DeCoster, James; Swan, Megan
- Date of Issue
- 2009-12
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- MEVE , NRSS , SCPN
- Keywords
- Abundance (Biodiversity), Loamy Mesa Top Pinyon-Juniper ecological site, Monitoring, Observations, Presence (Biodiversity), Soils, Taxa Links To Datasets, upland ecosystems, Vegetation, Vouchers