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.

In 2009, the authors initiated a small pilot survey of six limber pine stands in CRMO following the Interagency Whitebark Pine Monitoring Protocol for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Greater Yellowstone Whitebark Pine Monitoring Working Group hereafter referred to as GYWPMWG] 2007). No blister rust was found during that survey, although mountain pine beetle galleries were found in several trees, and dwarf mistletoe was ubiquitous. In 2010 the authors tested a draft version of the protocol currently being used by the Upper Columbia Basin Network (UCBN), as well as the Klamath Network (KLMN) and Sierra Nevada Network (SIEN; McKinney et al. 2012). In 2011 the authors implemented the first full panel of 30 plots, plus two oversamples, following approval of the McKinney et al. (2012) protocol. Results from 2011 are reported in Stucki and Rodhouse (2012). This report presents the results for the second full panel of 30 plots established and surveyed in August 2012. Note that panel 2 includes the two oversample plots that were established in 2011. This is the second formal year of protocol implementation, and the permanent plots established in 2012 represent the second of 3 panels of plots that will be monitored into the future.

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.

This CCP is the culmination of a planning process that began in January 1999. Numerous meetings with the public, the state, and conservation partners were held to identify and evaluate management alternatives. A draft CCP and Environmental Assessment (CCP/EA) was distributed in July 2003. This CCP presents the management goals, objectives, and strategies that we believe will best achieve our vision for the refuge, contribute to the National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) Mission, achieve refuge purposes and legal mandates, and serve the American public.

In 2009, the authors initiated a small pilot survey of six limber pine stands in CRMO following the Interagency Whitebark Pine Monitoring Protocol for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Greater Yellowstone Whitebark Pine Monitoring Working Group hereafter referred to as GYWPMWG] 2007). No blister rust was found during that survey, although mountain pine beetle galleries were found in several trees, and dwarf mistletoe was ubiquitous. In 2010 authors tested a draft version of the protocol currently being used by the Upper Columbia Basin Network (UCBN), as well as the Klamath Network (KLMN) and Sierra Nevada Network (SIEN; McKinney et al. in revision). The results reported in this report were generated in 2011 with data collected following an updated protocol by McKinney et al. (in revision). This is the first formal year of protocol implementation, and the permanent plots established in 2011 represent the first of 3 "panels" of plots that will be monitored into the future.

Throughout the world, freshwater ecosystems are considered to be among the most vulnerable systems. In the isolated Pacific islands there are a relatively small number of native freshwater species, which are mainly endemic to these locations (found nowhere else in the world). These species are characterized by an amphidromous lifecycle; reproducing in the stream, with larvae drifting to the ocean and eventually returning to a stream as juveniles and spending the remainder of their lifecycle there. Throughout the region, native flora and fauna face significant threats from species introductions and habitat destruction. The National Parks in the Pacific Island Network (PACN) protect some of the last relatively pristine stream systems. Monitoring based on this protocol: Pacific Islands Stream Monitoring: Fish, Shrimp, Snails and Habitat Characterization, will provide park managers with some of the information necessary to understand status and trends in biotic integrity within park stream systems.

The purpose of this study was to collect baseline water quality information on the Sound and the freshwater brooks flowing into the Sound. A depauperate water quality data base and concern over the potential for increased residential development throughout the Somes Sound watershed were incentives for initiating this study.

This document reports on analyses and other efforts to evaluate various aspects of the monitoring protocols relevant to the big river parks, and serves as an administrative history and record of decisions made during the revision process. The primary purpose of this report is to document evaluation of potential changes to the monitoring of fish and aquatic invertebrates at BUFF and OZAR. Changes that have been considered include sampling fewer sites, sampling less frequently, collecting fewer invertebrate samples per site, collecting data on fewer habitat variables, and not collecting data on fish lengths and weights. Based on this review, recommendations are made for revising the protocols associated with sampling and analysis of data from the big river systems of BUFF and OZAR.

A series of natural resource inventories were conducted throughout the Boston Harbor Islands, including terrestrial, marine and estuarine ecosystems. The resource inventories enhance our appreciation for the habitats and species that occur within the Boston Harbor Islands landscape. These resource inventories provide a scientific foundation for natural resource management decisions, will assist in the design of long-term monitoring programs, and help identify areas requiring additional inventory.

This is the second progress for a multi-year study of glaciers in Alaskan national parks. The project will be completed in December 2013. The authors present results from mapping of all glacier extents in Katmai National Park and Preserve (NP&P) and Lake Clark NP&P and from measurements of surface elevation changes on select glaciers in Lake Clark NP&P. They also summarize field efforts to date associated with the focus glacier component of the project and present a sample focus glacier vignette.

This is the first progress for a multi-year study of glaciers in Alaskan national parks. The project will be completed in December 2013. Here we present results from mapping of all glacier extents in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (NP&P) and Denali NP&P, from measurements of surface elevation changes on select glaciers in Glacier Bay NP&P, and from focus glacier research on Brady, Margerie, and Muir Glaciers in Glacier Bay NP&P.

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore (APIS) vegetation mapping project is an initiative of the National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Inventory Program (VIP), with cooperative support from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP), to classify and map plant communities of APIS. The goals of the project are to adequately describe and map plant communities of APIS and immediate surroundings and provide the NPS Natural Resource Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program, resource managers, and biological researchers with useful baseline vegetation information.

The upper Yellowstone River was mapped from the northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park near Gardiner, Montana to the bridge which crosses the river at Springdale, Montana. The mapped area of approximately 85 square miles encompasses the majority of the area that has been flooded by the river in the last 300 years and therefore includes all wetland and riparian habitat adjacent to the river as well as surrounding land use. The study area covers all of the Paradise Valley where the majority of channel modifications have taken place.

First published in 1985, William deBuys’s Enchantment and Exploitation has become a New Mexico classic. It offers a complete account of the relationship between society and environment in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico, a region unique in its rich combination of ecological and cultural diversity. Now, more than thirty years later, this revised and expanded edition provides a long-awaited assessment of the quality of the journey that New Mexican society has traveled in that time—and continues to travel. In a new final chapter deBuys examines ongoing transformations in the mountains’ natural systems—including, most notably, developments related to wildfires—with significant implications for both the land and the people who depend on it. As the climate absorbs the effects of an industrial society, deBuys argues, we can no longer expect the environmental future to be a reiteration of the environmental past.

The purpose of this report is to explain how the NWIPlus data could be and was used for predicting wetland functions at the landscape-level for coastal Georgia and the rationale for assigning certain biotic and/or abiotic characteristics to eleven wetland functions: 1) surface water detention, 2) coastal storm surge detention, 3) streamflow maintenance, 4) nutrient transformation, 5) carbon sequestration, 6) sediment and other particulate retention, 7) bank and shoreline stabilization, 8) provision of fish and aquatic invertebrate habitat, 9) provision of waterfowl and waterbird habitat, 10) provision of other wildlife habitat, and 11) provision of habitat for unique, uncommon or highly diverse wetland plant communities.