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Vital Signs Monitoring
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Guidance for Designing an Integrated Monitoring Program
Introduction
Natural resource monitoring is a major component of park stewardship, and a
cornerstone of the NPS Natural Resource Challenge - a program to revitalize and
expand the natural resource program within the park service and improve park
management through greater reliance on scientific knowledge. The overall purpose
for natural resource monitoring is to determine the status and trend in the
condition of selected park resources. Monitoring results will be used to assess
the efficacy of management and restoration efforts, provide early warning of
impending threats, and provide a basis for understanding and identifying meaningful
change in natural systems characterized by complexity, variability, and surprises.
Monitoring data may help to determine what constitutes impairment and to identify
the need to initiate or change management practices.
The intent of park vital signs monitoring is to track a subset of physical,
chemical, and biological elements and processes of park ecosystems that are
selected to represent the overall health or condition of park resources,
known or hypothesized effects of stressors, or elements that have important
human values. The elements and processes that are monitored are a subset of
the total suite of natural resources that park managers are directed to
preserve "unimpaired for future generations," including water, air,
geological resources, plants and animals, and the various ecological,
biological, and physical processes that act on those resources. In
situations where natural areas have been so highly altered that physical
and biological processes no longer operate (e.g., control of fires and
floods in developed areas), information obtained through monitoring can
help managers understand how to develop the most effective approach to
restoration or, in cases where restoration is impossible, ecologically
sound management. The broad-based, scientifically sound information
obtained through natural resource monitoring will have multiple applications
for management decision-making, research, education, and promoting public
understanding of park resources.
Integration: Ecological, Spatial, Temporal and Programmatic
One of the most difficult aspects of designing a comprehensive monitoring
program is integration of monitoring projects so that the interpretation
of the whole monitoring program yields information more useful than that
of individual parts. Integration involves ecological, spatial, temporal
and programmatic aspects:
- Ecological Integration involves considering the ecological linkages
among system drivers and the components, structures, and functions of
ecosystems when selecting monitoring indicators. An effective ecosystem
monitoring strategy will employ a suite of individual measurements that
collectively monitor the integrity of the entire ecosystem. One approach
for effective ecological integration is to select indicators at various
hierarchical levels of ecological organization (e.g., landscape,
community, population, genetic; see Noss 1990).
- Spatial Integration involves establishing linkages of measurements
made at different spatial scales within a park or network of parks, or
between individual park programs and broader regional programs (i.e.,
National Park Service or other national and regional programs). It requires
understanding of scalar ecological processes, the collocation of measurements
of comparably scaled monitoring indicators, and the design of statistical
sampling frameworks that permit the extrapolation and interpolation of
scalar data.
- Temporal Integration involves establishing linkages between
measurements made at various temporal scales. It will be necessary
to determine a meaningful timeline for sampling different indicators
while considering characteristics of temporal variation in these
indicators. For example, sampling changes in the structure of a forest
overstory (e.g., size class distribution) may require much less frequent
sampling than that required to detect changes in the composition or
density of herbaceous groundcover. Temporal integration requires
nesting the more frequent and, often, more intensive sampling within
the context of less frequent sampling.
- Programmatic Integration involves the coordination and communication
of monitoring activities within and among parks, among divisions of the
NPS Natural Resource Program Center, and among the NPS and other
agencies, to promote broad participation in monitoring and use of
the resulting data. At the park or network level, for example, the
involvement of a park's law enforcement, maintenance, and interpretative
staff in routine monitoring activities and reporting, results in a
well-informed park staff, wider support for monitoring, improved
potential for informing the public, and greater acceptance of
monitoring results in the decision-making process. The systems
approach to monitoring planning and design requires a coordinated
effort by the NRPC divisions of Air Resources, Biological Resource
Management, Geologic Resources, Natural Resource Information, and
Water Resources to provide guidance, technical support and funding
to the networks. Finally, there is a need for the NPS to
coordinate monitoring planning, design and implementation with other
agencies to promote sharing of data among neighboring land management
agencies, while also providing context for interpreting the data.
Establishing Monitoring Goals and Objectives
The overall purpose of natural resource monitoring in parks is to
develop scientifically sound information on the current status and
long term trends in the composition, structure, and function of
park ecosystems, and to determine how well current management
practices are sustaining those ecosystems. Use of monitoring
information will increase confidence in manager's decisions and
improve their ability to manage park resources, and will allow
managers to confront and mitigate threats to the park and operate
more effectively in legal and political arenas. To be effective,
the monitoring program must be relevant to current management issues
as well as anticipate future issues based on current and potential
threats to park resources. The program must be scientifically credible,
produce data of known quality that are accessible to managers and
researchers in a timely manner, and be linked explicitly to management
decision-making processes.
The need to clearly articulate the goals and objectives of a monitoring
program is emphasized in just about every "how to" guide that has ever been
written about natural resource monitoring, and yet good examples of specific,
measurable objectives are hard to find. This website provides guidance and
examples of monitoring objectives for use in vital signs monitoring plans and
sampling protocols.
A goal is a concise, general statement of the overall purpose of a
program. All 32 networks of parks address the following five Goals of
Vital Signs Monitoring as they plan, design, and implement integrated
natural resource monitoring:
- Determine the status and trends in selected indicators of the
condition of park ecosystems to allow managers to make better-informed
decisions and to work more effectively with other agencies and
individuals for the benefit of park resources.
- Provide early warning of abnormal conditions of selected
resources to help develop effective mitigation measures and
reduce costs of management.
- Provide data to better understand the dynamic nature and
condition of park ecosystems and to provide reference points
for comparisons with other, altered environments.
- Provide data to meet certain legal and Congressional mandates
related to natural resource protection and visitor enjoyment.
- Provide a means of measuring progress towards performance goals.
An objective is a more specific statement that provides additional
focus about the purpose or desired outcome of the program. Three types of
objectives that are commonly presented in the ecological monitoring
literature are Management Objectives, Sampling Objectives,
and Monitoring Objectives. For purposes of vital signs monitoring
plans (Phase 1, 2 and 3), we are primarily concerned with Monitoring Objectives.
An effective set of monitoring objectives should meet the test of being
realistic, specific, and measurable.
Management objectives provide focus about the desired state or
condition of the resource, and provide a measure of management success.
As described by Elzinga et al. (1998:46), management objectives can
usually be classified as one of two types: (1) target/threshold
objectives (e.g., increase the population size of Species A to 5000
individuals; maintain a population of a rare plant Species B at 2500
individuals or greater; keep Site C free of invasive weeds X and Y); or
(2) change/trend objectives (e.g., increase mean density of Species A by
20%; decrease frequency of invasive weed X by 30% at Site C). Some
examples of management objectives are as follows:
- Manually remove overstory trees at the Goat Prairie Unit to
reduce combined mean density for Sugar Maple, Bigtooth Aspen,
American Basswood, Red Elm and White Ash to 370 trees/ha before FY2001.
- Maintain percent cover of less than 5% for all exotic species
combined at Manley Woodland from 1999 to 2008.
- Increase family richness of aquatic macroinvertebrates in
Wilson's Creek by 20% between 1999 and 2004.
- Decrease population size of Rainbow Trout in Eagle Creek
by 50% between 1999 and 2004.
Sampling objectives are usually written as companion
objectives to management or monitoring objectives. Sampling
(or statistical) objectives specify information such as target
levels of precision, power, acceptable Type I and II error rates,
and magnitude of change you are hoping to detect. An example of a
sampling objective is as follows:
- We want to be 90% certain of detecting a 40% change in bird
density and we are willing to accept a 10% chance of saying a
change took place when it really didn't.
Monitoring objectives provide additional detail about
what the monitoring program or sampling protocol will do. In
the introductory chapter of the monitoring plan, monitoring
objectives should be written as more general statements to
provide some additional focus to the program beyond the five
monitoring goals. For purposes of a sampling protocol, however,
we are looking for a set of specific, measurable objectives that
meet the test of being realistic, specific, and measurable. After
reading only a brief justification statement and the set of
monitoring objectives, the reader should be able to anticipate
what the resulting data set will look like, and should have a
good sense of what measures will be included or not included.
The monitoring objectives explain 'what the protocol will do',
and they often put boundaries or limits on what will be included
in the monitoring by specifying particular study areas, species,
or measures. The following checklist of questions should be
applied to the set of monitoring objectives to see if they meet
the test:
- Are each of the objectives measureable?
- Are they achievable?
- Is the location or spatial bounds of the monitoring specified?
- Is the species or attribute being monitored specified?
- Will the reader be able to anticipate what the data will look like?
Table 1 below provides a number of examples of specific, measurable
monitoring objectives for sampling protocols. If only one or two
species or locations is to be monitored, the objective statement
should include the names of those species or locations to make it
"specific"; however, if numerous species or locations will be monitored,
it is acceptable to use terms such as "for selected species" or
"in selected sites" in order to make it easier to read and
understand the objective statement. The protocol document
itself, however, should include a list or table specifying
all of the species or locations to be sampled.
Table 1. Examples of specific, measurable monitoring objectives.
Vital Sign or Protocol
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Specific, Measurable Objectives
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Weather/climate
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-Determine variability and long-term trends in climate for all
PACN parks through monthly and annual summaries of descriptive
statistics for selected weather parameters, including air temperature,
precipitation, cloud cover, and wind speed and direction.
-Identify and determine frequencies and patterns of extreme
climatic conditions for common weather parameters.
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Erosion and deposition
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1. Determine long-term trends in soil erosion rates and soil
quality (e.g., organic matter, pH, infiltration, bulk density,
aggregate stability, root exposure, soil crusts, etc.) at
randomly selected sites in WAPA, AMME, and ALKA.
2. Determine seasonal and long-term trends in water column
turbidity at selected marine and freshwater sites.
3. Determine seasonal and long-term trends in sedimentation
rates at selected marine and freshwater sites stratified
(or weighted) by degree of recreational access.
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Groundwater dynamics
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1. Determine long-term trends in groundwater withdrawal and
saltwater intrusion through measurement of groundwater levels,
discharge rates , and salinity at selected sites.
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Water quality
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1. Determine long-term trends in water temperature, pH, conductivity,
dissolved oxygen, flow/stage/level, PAR, total nitrogen,
total phosphorus, and chlorophyll a in selected freshwater
and marine sites in PACN parks.
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Non-native invasive terrestrial plants-early warning
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1. Develop and maintain a list of target species that do not
currently occur in the parks, occur in localized areas of parks,
or are extremely rare, but that would cause major ecological or
economic problems if they were to become established.
2. Develop and maintain a predictive "risk of occurrence"
search model for target species based on life history attributes,
dispersal modes, invasion corridors, vectors of spread,
invasibility of areas and known locations.
3. Detect incipient populations (i.e. small or localized)
and new introductions of selected non-native plants before
they become established in areas of high and moderate management
significance in a rotating panel design searching 1/3 of the park each year.
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Non-native invasive terrestrial plants-status and trends
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1. Determine the areal extent, distribution and abundance of
selected non-native invasive plants in PACN parks at 5 year
intervals.
2. Determine the rate of spread of selected non-native invasive
plants in all areas of high priority management significance
at HALE and HAVO.
3. Determine the stand structure of populations of selected
non-native invasive plantswithin high priority management
areas in order to predict potential spread.
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Terrestrial plant species and communities
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1. Determine long-term trends in species composition and community
structure (e.g., cover, density by height class of woody species)
of selected focal plant communities.
2. Determine long-term trends in the distribution and abundance
of plant species of special management interest in selected areas
of PACN parks.
3. Determine annual variation in recruitment and mortality for
selected populations of long-lived perennial plant species of
special management interest.
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Benthic marine community
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1. Determine long-term trends in percent cover of sessile marine
benthic invertebrates (e.g., coral, sponges) and algal assemblages
(including large fleshy, articulated and crustose coralline, and
turf algae) at selected sites along an isobath between 10 and 20 meters depth.
2. Determine trends in benthic rugosity at randomly selected,
fixed (permanent) stations that have been stratified by reef
zone (e.g., reef flat, reef slope).
3. Determine trends in recruitment rate to uniform artificial
surfaces of hard corals (as an assemblage) at selected sites on
the fore reef along an isobath between 10 and 20 meters depth.
4. Determine trends in rate of growth and survival of randomly
selected coral colonies of a common, trans-Pacific species
(e.g., Pocillopora damicornis, P. verrucosa) growing at similar depth.
5. Determine long-term trends in the incidence and severity of
coral and algal disease and bleaching.
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Freshwater animal communities
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1. Determine long-term trends in the composition and diversity of
fish and invertebrates in selected freshwater and brackish water
communities.
2. Determine trends in the distribution and abundance of fish
and invertebrate populations in selected stream and lentic habitats.
3. Improve understanding of relationships between freshwater
and brackish water animal communities and their habitat by
correlating physical and chemical habitat measures with
changes in distribution and abundance of fish and invertebrates.
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Marine fish
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1. Determine long-term trends in the abundance of key reef slope
fish species at selected sites along an isobath of 10-20 m depth.
2. Determine long-term trends in abundance and size of targeted
coral reef fish species (e.g., species that are harvested) from
selected sites within and outside of marine protected areas.
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Forest passerine birds
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1. Determine long-term trends in species composition and abundance
of native and non-native forest passerine species in selected areas
of PACN parks.
2. Improve our understanding of breeding bird - habitat relationships
and the effects of management actions such as alien plant and animal
control on bird populations by correlating changes in forest bird
species composition and abundance with changes in specific habitat variables.
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Seabirds
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1. Determine long-term trends in the number, distribution, and size
of colonies of coastal-strand nesting Procellarid seabirds at HALE,
HAVO, KALA, KAHO, and NPSA.
2. Determine reproductive success of a sample of nests within
colonies monitored in Objective #1.
3. Determine long-term trends in reproductive success and
recruitment of Hawaiian Petrels at HALE and HAVO and Tahiti
and Herald Petrels at NPSA.
4. Determine trends in the number and distribution of booby
roost sites in and adjacent to KALA, NPSA and WAPA.
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Bats
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1. Determine long-term trends in the distribution and abundance
of flying foxes in selected areas of WAPA and NPSA.
2. Determine long-term trends in the distribution and abundance
of Hawaiian Hoary Bats in selected areas of PACN parks in Hawaii.
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RTE Plant Species
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1. Determine long-term trends in the distribution and abundance of
selected rare, threatened, and endangered plant species within
selected areas of PACN parks.
2. Determine size-class distribution for selected RTE plant species
in selected areas to help predict population trends.
3. Determine long-term trends in the distribution, abundance, and
stand structure of RTE plants in selected areas with and without
management intervention (e.g., non-native invasive plant and
animal control in Special Ecological Areas).
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Fisheries harvest
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1. Determine annual composition, sizes, catch-per-unit-effort,
and quantities (by weight, and numbers where possible) of park-specific
targeted coral reef fishes and invertebrates (e.g., shellfish,
octopus, lobster, sea urchins and palolo polychaetes) harvested in park waters.
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Landscape Dynamics
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1. Determine annual status and trends in the areal extent and
configuration of land-cover types on park lands.
2. Determine annual status and trends in the areal extent and
configuration of land-cover types on lands adjacent to parks.
3. Determine long-term changes in fire frequency and extent.
4. Determine long-term changes in frequency and extent of insect
and disease outbreaks.
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Peregrine Falcons
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1. Determine annual status and trends in territory occupancy of
Peregrine Falcons.
2. Determine annual status and trends in nest success of
Peregrine Falcons.
3. Determine annual status and trends in productivity of
Peregrine Falcons.
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Raptors
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1. Determine annual nesting success of breeding raptors at
Pinnacles NM as measured by territories occupied, number of
chick produced and number of chicks fledged.
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Benthic Macroinvertebrates
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1. Determine trends in species composition, distribution, and
abundance of benthic macrofauna assemblages in systems where
tidal influence is being restored (Hatches Harbor, East Harbor)
versus trends in systems with unaltered tidal hydrology.
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Shoreline Change
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1. Determine where the directions of shoreline change
(i.e. erosion or accretion) are persistent, where they are
cyclic and near equilibrium, and where park resources are at risk.
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Ozark Hellbender
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1. Determine long-term changes in the distribution of
hellbenders in Ozark NSR.
2. Determine long-term trends in the number of hellbenders in
selected study areas in OZAR.
3. In selected study areas in OZAR, determine long-term trends
in the sex and age structure and rates of reproduction and
survival of hellbenders.
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An effective set of monitoring objectives should meet
the test of being realistic, specific, and measurable.
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