Developing effective sampling designs for monitoring natural resources in Alaskan national parks: An example using simulations and vegetation data

Biological Conservation

Volumn 144, Issue 5, 2011, Pages 1270-1277

  Thompson, William L ^a   Miller, Amy E ^a   Mortenson, Dorothy C ^a,b   Woodward, Andrea ^c  

^a NATIONAL PARK SERVICE   (United States)

^b Oregon Water Resources Department   (United States)

^c U S GEOLOGICAL SURVEY   (United States)

Author keywords

Coefficient of variation; Path Distance analysis; Sample size estimation; Sampling frequency

Indexed keywords

COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS; DATA SET; DESIGN; ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING; ESTIMATION METHOD; FREQUENCY ANALYSIS; GIS; LAND COVER; MAPPING METHOD; NATURAL RESOURCE; NUMERICAL MODEL; SAMPLING; VEGETATION STRUCTURE;

ALASKA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 79956194827     PISSN: 00063207     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2010.09.032     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. Alderson P. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. British Medical Journal 2004, 328:476-477.
2. Alvarez-Buylla E.R., Slatkin M. Finding confidence limits on population growth rates: three real examples revised. Ecology 1994, 75:255-260.
3. Barber V.A., Juday G.P., Finney B.P. Reduced growth of Alaskan white spruce in the twentieth century from temperature-induced drought stress. Nature 2000, 405:668-673.
4. Bennett, A.J., Thompson, W.L., Mortenson, D.C., 2006. Vital signs monitoring plan, Southwest Alaska Network. National Park Service, Anchorage, Alaska. http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/swan/index.cfm?theme=reports_pub.
5. Berg E.E., Henry J.D., Fastie C.L., De Volder A.D., Matsuoka S.M. Spruce beetle outbreaks on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, and Kluane National Park and Reserve, Yukon Territory: relationship to summer temperatures and regional differences in disturbance regimes. Forest Ecology and Management 2006, 227:219-232.
6. Boucher T.V., Mead B.R. Vegetation change and forest regeneration on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska following a spruce beetle outbreak, 1987-2000. Forest Ecology and Management 2006, 227:233-246.
7. Bowman W.D., Gartner J.R., Holland K., Wiedermann M. Nitrogen critical loads for alpine vegetation and terrestrial ecosystem response: are we there yet?. Ecological Applications 2006, 16:1183-1193.
8. Brosi B.J., Biber E.G. Statistical inference, Type II error, and decision making under the US Endangered Species Act. Frontiers of Ecology and the Environment 2009, 7(9):487-494.
9. Burnham K.P., Anderson D.R. Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach 2002, Springer-Verlag, New York.
10. Cannone N., Sgorbati S., Guglielmin M. Unexpected impacts of climate change on alpine vegetation. Frontiers of Ecology and the Environment 2007, 5(7):360-364.
11. Chapin F.S., Sturm M., Serreze M.C., McFadden J.P., Key J.R., Lloyd A.H., McGuire A.D., Rupp T.S., Lynch A.H., Schimel J.P., Beringer J., Chapman W.L., Epstein H.E., Euskirchen E.S., Hinzman L.D., Jia G., Ping C.-L., Tape K.D., Thompson C.D.C., Walker D.A., Welker J.M. Role of land-surface changes in Arctic summer warming. Science 2005, 310:657-660.
12. Earnst S.L., Stehn R.A., Platte R.M., Larned W.W., Mallek E.J. Population size and trend of yellow-billed loons in northern Alaska. Condor 2005, 107:289-304.
13. Eberhardt L.L. Population projections from simple models. Journal of Applied Ecology 1987, 24:103-118.
14. Fancy S.G., Gross J.E., Carter S.L. Monitoring the condition of natural resources in US national parks. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 2009, 151:161-174.
15. Field S.A., O'Connor P.J., Tyre A.J., Possingham H.P. Making monitoring meaningful. Austral Ecology 2007, 32:485-491.
16. Gesch D., Oimoen M., Greenlee S., Nelson C., Steuck M., Tyler D. The National Elevation Dataset. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 2002, 68:5-11.
17. Golden, M., Spencer, P., 1998. Lake Clark National Park and Preserve land cover mapping project user's guide. Natural Resource Technical Report NPS/LACL/NRTR-1998/001. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado. http://www.nature.nps.gov/publications/NRPM/nrtr.cfm.
18. Hudson J.M.G., Henry G.H.R. Increased plant biomass in a High Arctic heath community from 1981 to 2008. Ecology 2009, 90:2657-2663.
19. Legg C.J., Nagy L. Why most conservation monitoring is, but need not be, a waste of time. Journal of Environmental Management 2006, 78:194-199.
20. Lesica P., McCune B. Decline of Arctic-alpine plants at the southern margin of their range following a decade of climatic warming. Journal of Vegetation Science 2004, 15:679-690.
21. Lindenmayer D.B., Likens G.E. Adaptive monitoring: a new paradigm for long-term research and monitoring. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 2009, 24:482-486.
22. Lohr S.L. Sampling: Design and Analysis 1999, Duxbury Press, Pacific Grove, California.
23. McDonald T.L. Review of environmental monitoring methods: survey designs. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 2003, 85:277-292.
24. Miller, A.E., Thompson, W.L., Moore, C., 2009. Vegetation composition and structure: baseline monitoring in the Southwest Alaska Network, 2008 annual summary report. Natural Resource Technical Report NPS/SWAN/NRTR-2009/213. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado. http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/swan/Libraries/Reports/SWAN_Veg_2008_Annual_Report_FINAL_090707.pdf.
25. Miller, A.E., Walton, J.K., Moore, C., Thompson, W.L., 2010. Vegetation composition and structure: baseline monitoring in the Southwest Alaska Network, 2009 annual summary report. Natural Resource Technical Report NPS/SWAN/NRTR-2010/342. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado. http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/swan/Libraries/Reports/MillerA_2010_SWAN_VegCompStrucBaselineAnnualReport2009NRTR_20100610.pdf.
26. Mortenson, D.C., Miller, A.E., 2008. Path Distance analysis to determine accessibility for long-term vegetation monitoring program, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Natural Resource Technical Report NPS/SWAN/NRTR-2008/126. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado. http://science1.nature.nps.gov/naturebib/biodiversity/2008-9-25/MortensonD_2008_PathCostAnalysis_652486.pdf.
27. SAS Institute, Inc., 2006. Base SAS® 9.1.3 Procedures Guide, Vols. 1-4, second ed. SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, North Carolina.
28. SAS Institute, Inc., 2008. SAS/STAT® 9.2 User's Guide. SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, North Carolina.
29. Stevens D.L., Olsen A.R. Spatially balanced sampling of natural resources. Journal of the American Statistical Association 2004, 99:262-278.
30. Sturm M., Racine C., Tape K. Climate change: increasing shrub abundance in the Arctic. Nature 2001, 411:546-547.
31. USGS, 2000. US GeoData digital elevation models. US Geological Survey, EROS Data Center, Fact Sheet 040-00, Sioux Falls, South Dakota. http://egsc.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/factsheets/fs04000.pdf.
32. Viereck, L.A., Dyrness, C.T., Batten, A.R., Wenzlick. K.J., 1992. The Alaska vegetation classification. US Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, General Technical Report PNW-GTR-286, Portland, Oregon.
33. Walker M.D., Wahren C.H., Hollister R.D., Henry G.H.R., Ahlquist L.E., Alatalo J.M., Bret-Harte M.S., Calef M.P., Callaghan T.V., Carroll A.B., Epstein H.E., Jónsdóttir I.S., Klein J.A., Magnússon B., Molau U., Oberbauer S.F., Rewa S.P., Robinson C.H., Shaver G.R., Suding K.N., Thompson C.C., Tolvanen A., Totland O., Turner P.L., Tweedie C.E., Webber P.J., Wookey P.A. Plant community responses to experimental warming across the tundra biome. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 2006, 103:1342-1346.
34. Wellek S. Testing Statistical Hypotheses of Equivalence 2002, CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida.
35. Woodward, A.E., Hutten, K.M., Boetsch, J.R., Acker, S.A., Rochefort, R.M., Bivin, M.M., Kurth, L.L., 2009. Forest vegetation monitoring protocol for national parks in the North Coast and Cascades Network. US Geological Survey Techniques and Methods 2-A8, Reston, Virginia. http://pubs.usgs.gov/tm/tm2a8/.