ABSTRACT
Chance of Success ............................................................................50 2.6 Summary .......................................................................................................50 Acknowledgments ................................................................................................ 51 References ............................................................................................................... 52
U.S. National Park Service (NPS) units (“parks”) are important components in a system of reserves that protect biodiversity and other natural and cultural resources. To meet the NPS mission to manage resources so that they are left “. . . unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations” (16 USC 1) it is essential to know what resources occur in parks and to monitor the status and trends in the condition of key resource indicators. The NPS Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program (see Table 2.1 for a list of acronyms) was designed to provide the infrastructure and staff to identify critical environmental indicators (“vital signs”) and to implement long-term monitoring of natural resources in more than 270 parks that contain signi‰cant natural resources (Fancy et al. 2009). These parks are organized into 32 ecoregional networks (Figure 2.1). Each of the 32 I&M networks consists of core professional staff (program manager, data manager, ecologists, ‰eld technicians, etc.), and each I&M network supports monitoring in parks within the network.
