Sierra Nevada Network

Monitoring

Vital Signs

Botanist monitoring a wetland, Kings Canyon National Park.

Vital signs are biological and physical processes that the Sierra Nevada Network has identified as capable of informing us about changes in the ecosystem. Monitoring individual vital signs is taking the pulse of our parks and provides information on status and trends of an ecosystem. Vital signs can also tell scientists and managers what are normal variations and what might be symptoms of an unhealthy ecosystem. They might provide early warnings of situations that require intervention and help scientists frame research questions to determine relationships between cause and effect. A vital sign can be any measurable feature of the environment that provides insight into the condition of an ecosystem.

Sierra Network park managers and researchers, using supporting research, their best professional judgment, and guided by findings from the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, have identified five important ecosystem stressors posing the greatest threat to Sierra Nevada network parks. It is these stressors which provide the basis for determining which Vital Signs are the most important to monitor to determine changes occurring in Sierra Nevada ecosystems.

The five important stressors posing the greatest threat to Sierra Nevada network parks include:

1. rapid anthropogenic climatic change
2. altered fire regimes
3. alien invasive species
4. air pollution, and
5. habitat fragmentation and human use.

The process for choosing and prioritizing vital signs has been ongoing within Sierra Nevada Network parks beginning in 1999. Discussions among researchers and park managers arrived at 86 vital signs whose condition would best indicate the health of park ecosystems. Each of these 86 network vital signs was then evaluated in context of the following:

• Is the vital sign relevant to national monitoring goals?
• Is the vital sign relevant to network and monitoring objectives?
• Is the vital sign relevant to resources management?
• Is the vital sign responsive or related to known anthropogenic stressors?
• Does the vital sign provide information about key ecosystems, communities or processes?

Using these criteria, park staff narrowed the list to 13 vital signs considered the highest priority for the immediate development of monitoring protocols. They are:

Weather and Climate
Snowpack
Surface Water Dynamics
Meadow & Wetland Water Dynamics
Water Chemistry
Nonnative Invasive Plants
Forest Popluation Dynamics
Meadow & Wetland Plant Communities
Amphibians
Birds
Fire Regimes
Landscape Mosaics
Macroinvertebrates (Meadow & Wetland)

To learn more about how each is critical to understanding the health of the four parks in the Sierra Nevada Network
» continue to the next page.

Learn More

Stressor: Climate Change
Stressor: Altered Fire Regimes
Stressor: Non-native Invasive Species
Stressor: Air Pollution
Stressor: Habitat Fragmentation
Vital Signs Monitoring
New Climate Monitoring Station at Devils Postpile National Monument