Network Vital Signs

What is a Vital Sign?

The term “vital signs” was coined by NPS to represent indicators of environmental health, reflecting their similarity to critical measures of human health. Vital signs can be select physical, chemical, and biological elements and processes of park ecosystems, known or hypothesized effects of stressors, or elements that have important human values. Vital signs may occur at any level of organization (e.g. landscape, population, community) and may be compositional (referring to the variety of elements in the system), structural (referring to the organization or pattern of the system), or functional (referring to ecological processes).

The vital signs are categorized into five groups or levels based on the National I&M Framework.  To learn more about each Level I Vital Sign and some of the monitoring questions each will address, follow the links in the left-hand margin under Level I Vital Signs.

Vital Sign Selection Process

An 8-step approach was taken by the Mojave Network to identify, prioritize, and select vital signs. The 2004 Vital Signs Workshop Report, which details the selection process and the vital signs under consideration, can be downloaded in the reports section.

1. Identify ecosystem drivers, stressors, and important processes through development of an initial conceptual ecological model for the network.
2. Conduct a series of small, park-based workshops to identify important resources (abiotic, biotic, processes), resource threats, management concerns, monitoring questions and vital signs for each network park.
3. Identify similarities and differences across parks and summarize vital signs, threats, management concerns, and monitoring questions at the network-level.
4. Park staff review network-level information.
5. Prioritize vital signs for each park based on management significance and legal mandate.
6. Conduct a network-level vital signs scoping workshop to complete scientific review of network-level vital signs and associated information; complete prioritization of vital signs based on ecological significance; provide additional information helpful to monitoring for high priority vital signs (e.g. partnership opportunities, monitoring objectives).
7. Conduct a small workshop(s) for network and park staff to initially select a “short list” of high priority vital signs for the Mojave Network of parks.
8. Conduct a small workshop for network and park staff to select vital signs that the network will focus their efforts on in the next 5 years.

Mojave Network Vital Signs

In 2005, The MOJN Technical Committee selected the following, prioritized list of 20 vital signs for the network.

• Basic Meteorology
• Vegetation Change
• Invasive/Exotic Plants
• Surface Water dynamics
• Groundwater dynamics and chemistry
• Visibility and Particulates
• Ozone
• Wet and dry deposition
• Soil Quality – chemistry and nutrient cycling
• Soil Quality - hydrologic function
• Soil Quality – erosion and deposition
• Soil Quality – disturbance
• Soil Quality – biological soil crust dynamics
• Surface water chemistry
• Fire and fuel dynamics
• Landscape Dynamics
• At-risk populations
• Riparian birds
• Reptile communities
• Small mammal communities