Importance / Issues
Natural disturbances, stressors, and management cause large-scale changes in general ecosystem composition of parks. For example, the amount of woody cover types in the NGPN is driven by fire suppression and manipulated through prescribed burning. Climate change may alter habitat types (Daly et al. 2000).
The type, amount, and arrangement of vegetative structural types within parks partially determine vertebrate and invertebrate composition and abundance (Vinton and Collins 1997). Because of the expense of monitoring wildlife populations, most trends in animal communities must be inferred from changes in cover types and plant communities across the landscape.
Finer scale changes in some species (e.g., prairie dogs) and plant communities can be tracked with high-resolution remote images.
Monitoring Parks :
All Parks
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Potential Measures
Land use and coarse vegetation cover in parks and within a ~1-mi. buffer
Expected Approach
Acquire and analyze inexpensive fine-scale satellite imagery
Protocol Development & Status
Not Started
Status & Trends
Status and Trends will be posted once monitoring has begun.
Contact Information
NGPN Data Manager
Northern Great Plains Network
231 East St. Joseph St.
Rapid City, SD 57701
Tel. 605 - 341-2804
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Link to Landcover & Use Intranet page (NPS only)
