Since the late 1970s, the NPS Air Resources Division (ARD) has managed a comprehensive air quality program, emphasizing the collection of credible air quality information to support scientifically sound resource management decisions in parks. In general, air quality monitoring in parks, including monitoring of atmospheric deposition, ozone, and visibility, is done in conjunction with national networks. The authors describe the atmospheric deposition monitoring protocol.

Vegetation classification and mapping was conducted at Weir Farm National Historic Site during the fall of 2003 and the summers of 2004 and 2005, creating a current digital geospatial vegetation database for the park. There are nine natural vegetation types that occur in the park; four upland forest types, one upland non-vascular type, two forested wetland types, and two wetland shrub thicket types that reflected the soil moisture conditions of the site. In addition, four anthropogenic vegetation types occurred; one successional forest and three non-forested types (two in mowed upland fields, and one herbaceous wetland seep). Each of these is described in detail in this report.

This study measured wetland trends in the conterminous United States between 1998 and 2004. The estimates of estuarine emergent area were made prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita during the summer of 2005. The Cowardin et al. (1979) wetland definition was used to describe wetland types. By design, intertidal wetlands of the Pacific coast, reefs and submerged aquatic vegetation were excluded from this study.

This study was requested by the park in recognition of the need for soils information to assist in understanding the forest ecosystem, potential fire effects, management of trails and buildings, and for interpreting the Monument's cultural landscape. Existing soils information for Cook County provided only a very broad overview, with little or no field investigation to verify soil types or provide information at a level of detail pertinent to or useful for park needs.

A review of NPS species, the national database registering plant occurrence in parks, indicated that 465 plant species occurred in Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Of these, 148 (32%) are non-native, meaning that these plants were recently introduced through human agency. The authors detail the status of invasive plants and the resource management issue(s) for the park.

Market squid (Loligo opalescens) plays a vital role in the California ecosystem and serves as a major link in the food chain as both a predator and prey species.

The purpose of this publication is to report the findings of the Service's wetlands inventory of Rhode Island.

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey Priority Ecosystems Science initiative to provide the ecological science required during Everglades restoration, we have integrated current regional hydrologic models with American crocodile research and monitoring data to create a model that assesses the potential impact of Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan efforts on the American crocodile.

Although parasites play important ecological roles through the direct interactions they have with their hosts, historically that fact has been underappreciated. Today, scientists have a growing appreciation of the scope of such impacts. Parasites have been reported to dominate food webs (Bakker and others, 1997; Lafferty and others, 2006), alter predator-prey relationships (Lafferty and Morris, 1996), act as ecosystem engineers (Thomas and others, 1998, 1999), and alter community structure (Poulin, 1999; Wood and others, 2007). In spite of this growing awareness in the scientific community, parasites are still often neglected in the consideration of the management and conservation of resources and ecosystems (Marcogliese, 2004). Given that at least half of the organisms on earth are probably parasitic (Price, 1980; Windsor, 1998), it should be evident that the ecological functions of parasites warrant greater attention.

Increasingly, dry rangelands are being valued for multiple services beyond their traditional value as a forage production system. Additional ecosystem services include the potential to store carbon in the soil and plant biomass. In addition, dust emissions from rangelands might be considered an ecosystem detriment, the opposite of an ecosystem service. Dust emitted may have far-reaching impacts, for example, reduction of local air quality, as well as altering regional water supplies through effects on snowpack. Using an extensive rangeland monitoring dataset in the greater Canyonlands region (Utah, USA), we developed a method to estimate indices of the provisioning of three ecosystem services (forage production, dust retention, C storage) and one ecosystem property (nativeness), taking into account both ecosystem type and alternative states within that ecosystem type. We also integrated these four indices into a multifunctionality index. Comparing the currently ungrazed Canyonlands National Park watersheds to the adjacent Dugout Ranch pastures, we found clearly higher multifunctionality was attained in the Park, and that this was primarily driven by greater C-storage and better dust retention. It is unlikely to maximize all benefits and minimize all detriments at the same time. Some goods and services may have synergistic interactions; for example, managing for carbon storage will increase plant and biocrust cover likely lowering dust emission. Likewise, some may have antagonistic interactions. For instance, if carbon is consumed as biomass for livestock production, then carbon storage may be reduced. Ultimately our goal should be to quantify the monetary consequences of specific land use practices for multiple ecosystem services and determine the best land use and adaptive management practices for attaining multiple ecosystem services, minimizing economic detriments, and maximizing economic benefits from multi-commodity rangelands. Our technique is the first step toward this goal, allowing the simultaneous consideration of multiple targeted ecosystem services and properties.

The national parks within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) provide an opportunity to monitor amphibians within a relatively intact ecosystem, at spatial and temporal scales that can provide important insights about the status of regional amphibian populations and global declines of amphibians. The Greater Yellowstone Network (GRYN) amphibian monitoring program is the only long-term amphibian monitoring program in the GYE that consistently looks at multiple sites across the ecosystem.

This annual report details the status of key stream channel characteristics and riparian attributes obtained from the first season of monitoring in Doan and Mill Creeks within Whitman Mission National Historic Site (WHMI). This report is intended as a release of basic data sets and data summaries. Care has been taken to assure accuracy of raw data values, but thorough analysis and interpretation of the data has not been completed. More extensive analysis and discussion of stream channel characteristics and riparian will occur as part of the trend analysis, which will be available after 3 years of monitoring data become available.

the aim of this project was to create a vegetation map at the National Vegetation Classification alliance level or finer, with a minimum mapping unit of 0.5 hectares, thematic accuracy of 80% or better per map class, and spatial accuracy meeting U.S. National Map Accuracy Standards.

This annual report details the status of key stream channel characteristics and riparian attributes obtained from the first season of monitoring in Jim Ford Creek within the Weippe Prairie unit and Lapwai Creek within the Spalding unit of Nez Perce National Historical Park (NEPE). This report is intended as a release of basic data sets and data summaries. Care has been taken to assure accuracy of raw data values, but thorough analysis and interpretation of the data has not been completed. More extensive analysis and discussion of stream channel characteristics and riparian will occur as part of the trend analysis, which will be available after 3 years of monitoring data become available.

This annual report details the status of key indicators of water quality obtained from monitoring in John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (JODA). Monitoring occurred in two units of JODA, Painted Hills and Sheep Rock. Bridge Creek flows through the Painted Hills unit and the John Day River flows through the Sheep Rock unit.

The Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site (site) conducted an invasive plant survey during the summer of 2003 to generate baseline data in order to manage and assess the spatial impact of invasive plants. The primary goals of this study: 1) determine which invasive plant species inhabit the site; 2) determine the percent cover and density of the dominant invasive plant species; and 3) map where the dominant invasive plant species occur within the site.