| | Accession Number | 5001842 |
| | Title | Development of Patuxent long-term monitoring and ecological research project |
| | (PALMER) |
| | Project Description | The need to understand how biological resources change through time on the lands managed by |
| | Department of Interior agencies is often raised as a high priority within DOI. Understanding |
| | whether changes in animal or plant populations result from human perturbations or from natural |
| | causes has major implications to the way resources are managed. Many parks, refuges, and |
| | national forests are establishing long-term monitoring programs for certain biological and physical |
| | resources. At National Wildlife Refuges, managers need to be able to implement management |
| | programs and then evaluate their success through time. At the Patuxent Research Refuge, a |
| | great opportunity is available because of the joint programs of research on the grounds coupled |
| | with more traditional refuge management. This creates an opportunity for researchers to |
| | collaborate closely with refuge managers to more effectively evaluate changes in populations and |
| | make adaptive changes in management. The PALMER project proposes to: (1) update the |
| | bibliography of studies on the Center initiated by R. Hall in the 1980s and make it available as a |
| | library resource, (2) compile available long term data sets into a GIS for the Center, and to |
| | generate maps at different scales for resource planning, (3) create an updated vegetation data |
| | layer using the most current remote sensing data for the Center, (4) continue to collect long-term |
| | data on birds, and other fauna and flora, and work with Refuge and I & M personnel to identify |
| | what additional monitoring is needed for the Center, (5) use the results to make management |
| | recommendations for the refuge and identify to Refuge staff opportunities for Adaptive Resource |
| | Management, 6) the effects of deer herbivory on regeneration of bottomland hardwood forests have |
| | been studied using the 33 permanent plots and 13 exclosures.Project has been placed on hold |
| | (2000) by PWRC management.In 2003 there is the opportunity to re-evaluate the Patuxent |
| | bottomland plots (#6 above) since the area has undergone dramatic reductions of deer for the past |
| | several years. The plots have not been read since deer management began so reading now |
| | (exclosure/unexclosed plots) would provide insight as to the effect of browse release on the |
| | floodplain = bottomland herbaceous and tree seedling flora. |
| | Keywords | adaptive resource management, deer browse, gis, inventory, mapping, monitoring, national wildlife |
| | refuges, pwrc, tree seedlings, |
| | Principal | richard hammerschlag, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: |
| | Investigators | richard_hammerschlag@usgs.gov; |
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