scholarly journals Survey of the Bat Species and their Habitat use in Grand Teton National Park

Author(s):  
David Genter ◽  
Lee Metzgar

Until recently, little attention has been directed to the bat fauna of GTNP. The role of bats in ecosystems is more significant than previously thought. Also, the public's awareness of bats is growing and as part of routine interpretive needs, the NPS must have factual information on all animals in the Park. A baseline survey was conducted to determine species composition, distribution, abundance, and habitat use of bats in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. The principal objectives are: 1. Obtain information on species occurrence and distribution within the Park; 2. Assess the population status for bat species present; 3. Identify rare species in the Park and identify management needs to ensure the viability of these species in GTNP; and 4. Evaluate potential conflicts with human activities.

Author(s):  
Matt McGee ◽  
Stan Anderson ◽  
Doug Wachob

A study of coyote (Canis latrans) habitat use and mortality in Grand Teton National Park and the suburban-agricultural land surrounding Jackson, WY was conducted between September 1999 and August 2000. This research focused on the influence of human development, habitat type, topography, and simulated wolf presence on coyote habitat use and on coyote mortality patterns in undeveloped and suburban-agricultural land. The overall goal of this project was to provide baseline information on the coyote population in Jackson Hole that can be used in the future to determine what, if any, impact wolves and human developments may have on coyotes. There were a total of fifteen radio-collared coyotes in the suburban-agricultural area and fourteen radio collared coyotes in Grand Teton National Park and adjacent areas in the National Elk Refuge and Bridger-Teton National Forest. Marked coyotes were tracked weekly using short interval telemetry relocations and triangulation to determine habitat use patterns. During the winter, track transects were skied weekly and coyote trails were backtracked and mapped using hand held GPS units to determine fine scale habitat use patterns. Coyote mortality was determined via telemetry and direct observation. Preliminary data analyses suggest that coyotes use mainly sagebrush-grasslands or forest-shrub-grass edge areas and avoid forest interior areas. Coyotes frequently use trails and roads in the undeveloped area when moving long distances. Preliminary analysis also indicates that roads and trails are used in a greater proportion than their abundance on the landscape. Coyotes were frequently observed using riparian corridors to move between open meadows in the suburban-agricultural area. There is some evidence that suggests coyotes selectively travel fences and irrigation ditches for long distances in agricultural areas. The movement data also suggests that coyotes avoid developed areas during the day and travel in these developed areas at night. The data on coyote locations suggests some avoidance of wolf urine scent grids in the undeveloped area, but not in the developed area. Coyote mortality was primarily human caused, and coyotes that were male, transient, and lived in the suburban-agricultural area were the most commonly killed animals.


Author(s):  
N. Qwynne Lackey ◽  
Kelly Bricker

Concessioners play an important role in park and protected area management by providing visitor services. Historically, concessioners were criticized for their negative impacts on environmental sustainability. However, due to policy changes, technological advances, and shifting market demands, there is a need to reevaluate the role of concessioners in sustainable destination management in and around parks and protected areas. The purpose of this qualitative case study situated in Grand Teton National Park (GTNP), which was guided by social exchange theory, was to explore U.S. national park concessioners’ influence on sustainable development at the destination level from the perspective of National Park Service (NPS) staff, concessioners, and local community members. Sustainability was examined holistically as a multifaceted construct with integrated socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental dimensions. Twenty-three participants completed semistructured interviews. Researchers identified four thematic categories describing concessioners’ influence on sustainability; motivations and barriers to pursuing sustainability initiatives; and situational factors that facilitated concessioners’ sustainability actions. While participants commented on the negative environmental impacts of concessioners and their operations, these data suggest that concessioners were working individually and collaboratively to promote environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural sustainability in and around GTNP. Some concessioners were even described as leaders, testing and driving the development of innovative sustainability policies and practices. These actions were motivated, in part, by contractual obligations and profit generation. However, concessioners also had strong intangible motivators, such as intrinsic values and a strong sense of community, that drove their positive contributions to sustainability. Based on these data, we recommend that those involved in future theoretical and practical work with concessioners acknowledge the importance of both tangible and intangible motivators when attempting to promote higher levels of sustainability achievement and collaboration. This will become increasingly important as land management agencies continue to embrace strategies beyond the traditional “parks as islands” approach to management. Additionally, future work should explore more specifically the role of policy, conceptualizations of sustainability, and private industry sponsorship in promoting concessioners’ contributions to sustainability, especially in collaborative settings. This work is needed to understand if and how these observations generalize to other contexts.


1974 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 783-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. H. F. Watson

Recent studies of zooplankton of the St. Lawrence Great Lakes have concentrated on a broad synoptic coverage of sampling stations and repeated cruises throughout a growing season. This has resulted in a considerable amount of detail about seasonal changes in species composition, total numbers, and vertical and horizontal distributions. Investigators have treated the data to show differences in distribution over the lakes on a cruise and cruise mean averages for each lake, often weighted by area to provide relative abundance figures over the season and between lakes.Maximum numbers were observed in Lake Erie (225,000/m3). Considerably fewer organisms were found in periods of peak abundance in Lake Ontario (55,000/m3) and Lake Huron (22,000/m3). No firm estimates are available for Lake Superior but numbers from one cruise (8000/m3) indicate still lower values there. Biomass estimates (either as ash-free weight of material from planktonnet hauls or from conversions of numbers to biomass from dry weight factors for individual species) are highest for Lake Erie, but reflect the larger size of organisms in the other lakes, especially Huron and Superior.Species distributions are now reasonably well known for crustaceans, except in one or two taxa of the cladocerans Daphnia and Bosmina whose variability should be investigated more fully. Recent studies have been made on the rotifers, but their numbers, distribution, and ecological role is not fully defined. Similarly, the distribution and role of protozoan groups have been largely ignored.Several computer techniques are suggested for the handling and analysis of the large quantities of data generated on lakewide surveys including community coefficients and cluster analyses. More attention should be given to determining sampling intervals to obtain information which can precisely detect changes in abundance from year to year, and better population dynamics and production data are needed to relate zooplankton stocks to eutrophication.


Author(s):  
Michael Whitfield ◽  
Barry Keller

This study was initiated in order to determine the population status of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) in the Teton Range. Intensive field studies were initiated in the summer of 1978 and will be continued during the winter of 1978-79 in order to delineate the distribution of sheep and to relate this distribution to habitat factors which affect seasonal distributions. Additionally, information on the history of bighorn sheep has been sought through interviews of longtime residents of the several valleys surrounding the Teton Range.


Author(s):  
Richard Marston ◽  
Robin Gray

Large woody debris (LWD) plays a key role in controlling the ecology and geomorphology of streams. Woody debris traps coarse particulate organic matter and sediments (Andersen and Sedell, 1979; Bilby and Likens, 1980; Marston, 1982); provides habitat for aquatic insects (Angermeier and Karr, 1984; Benke et al., 1985); and provides cover in pools and slow water areas (Bisson et al., 1982, 1987; Tschaplinski and Hartman, 1983; Fausch and Northcote, 1992). The role of wood in affecting stream morphology is dependent on the size of the stream (Bilby and Ward, 1989). In smaller streams, woody debris can create step pool sequences (Heede, 1972, 1985; Marston, 1982), increase pool area (Murphy and Hall, 1981; Ralph et al., 1994), and reduce sediment transport (Bilby, 1984). Nakamura and Swanson (1993) noted that the importance of woody debris to the morphology of first order streams can be limited by the size of the debris, which is often large enough to bridge the channel and not interact with the flow. Woody debris plays a larger role when it enters the channel bottom, where it can divert flow and affect erosion and deposition. The scale issues raised by Bilby and Ward (1989) and Nakamura and Swanson (1993) are critical to understanding the role of woody debris. To date, LWD has not been adequately studied at watershed scales in larger rivers. In fact, there is little understanding of the relationship between LWD and the geomorphic pattern of the river channel (Piegay and Marston, 1998; Piegay and Gumell, 1997; Piegay, 1993). The purpose of this study is to document the distribution of LWD jams on the Snake River in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming in order to understand the effects of LWD on channel morphology in large river systems.


Author(s):  
Kent McKnight ◽  
Kimball Harper ◽  
Karl McKnight

The research underway is directed toward 3 primary objectives. The first is to inventory and document the presence of the species of macrofungi growing in Grand Teton National Park and environs. Detailed descriptions are written for new and uncommon species. A second objective is to appraise the role of macrofungi in the Park ecosystem and the third is to prepare keys, illustrations, and descriptions for as many species as possible.


Author(s):  
C. Villalobos ◽  
Barry Keller

Riparian ecosystems are among the most productive biological systems providing food, water, shade, and cover for wildlife (Thomas et al. 1979a). Furthermore, they may display a greater diversity of plant and animal species and vegetative structure than adjacent ecosystems (USDI 1986). Thomas et al. (1979a) provide a descriptive definition which characterizes riparian ecosystems by the presence of trees, shrubs, or herbaceous vegetation that require free or unbound water, or conditions that are more moist than those of the surrounding areas. They suggest that more wildlife species depend entirely on or spend disproportionally more time in riparian habitat than any other. Although the importance of riparian vegetation to wildlife has been apparent since the 1970's, its overall importance to vertebrate species has not been widely studied, especially in the western United States (Patton 1977). Elsewhere, there is a paucity of information on the ecological role of small mammals in riparian areas. Because small vertebrate species may serve as an especially important link in the food chain of threatened, endangered, or reintroduced species, and because small mammal species seem to be compacted in environmentally diverse areas, analysis of riparian vertebrate communities should provide important insights in mechanisms of habitat subdivision and utilization. Clearly, riparian areas contain a greater variety of species than adjoining forest or upslope habitats (Cross 1985). The effect of patch shape on the number of species occupying riparian habitats also has received limited attention (Patton 1975). Because riparian habitat consists of a narrow patch, the elongated shape of riparian areas produces a low interior-to­high-edge ratio which may facilitate or enhance ecological processes, especially the production and dispersal of small mammals. Unfortunately, no documentation exists about patterns of mammalian movement along stream corridors (Forman and Godron 1986). Thus, the importance of the relative use of the edge, riparian, and upland areas by small mammals needs to be investigated, especially in forested mountain land, where riparian areas tend to have smaller areal extent and economic value than upslope vegetation (Swanson et al. 1982). The principle objective of our study was to determine if consistent environmental and landscape features could be found in western riparian, edge, and upland communities, and if these features affected residency of small mammals in Grand Teton National Park. Three independent study sites were studied from June, 1991 through October, 1991 in preparation for a proposed long-term analysis of the role of riparian areas in production of small mammals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-443
Author(s):  
Jerzy Solon ◽  
Anna Otręba ◽  
Anna Andrzejewska ◽  
Piotr T. Zaniewski

On the basis of 2001, 2007, 2012 and 2018 phytosociological records obtained from 52 permanent plots distributed across Poland’s Kampinos National Park, it proved possible to determine main directions of change in the ecological character of undergrowth. Reference to similarity of species composition on the plots between 2001 and 2018 allowed for the identification of Groups: A (occurring in boggy alder forest habitats, and comprising communities at different successional stages), B (coniferous and mixed-coniferous forests), C (oak-hornbeam forests and similar communities) and D (vegetation representing different dynamic stages of the succession from non-forest to forest communities). Irrespective of each plot’s unique history, the above Groups of plots could be characterised in line with specific sets of features subject to directional change during the period under analysis. Where Group A communities were concerned, a rise in the level of ground water and a decline in the content of organic carbon in soil were experienced, with the result that fen sedge species (Scheuchzerio-Caricetea) came to play a reduced role, even as there was a steadily-increasing role for species associated with communities flooded at least periodically (hence Potamogetonetea and Bidentetea). This was accompanied by a decrease in the number of shrub species and an increase in the number of bryophyte species. There were also increases in the proportions of geophytes and species associated with habitats more abundant in nitrogen. Group B communities were likewise subject to rising water tables, albeit changes not reflected directly in differing vegetation characteristics. The carbon: nitrogen ratio in soils here increased, as did numbers of species characteristic of undergrowth, as well as the bryophyte layer. Nevertheless, where undergrowth species were concerned, the role of those typical for open sandy grasslands (Koelerio-Corynephoretea) is seen to be declining, with this inter alia denoting increased shares of species either tolerant of shade or avoiding full illumination. There has also been a decline affecting hemicryptophytes, even as species associated with more nitrogen-rich habitats have come to account for greater shares. Where Group C communities encountered higher water levels, certain patches present in wetter habitats saw increases in the role played by species characteristic for class Bidentetea. The sorption capacities of soils here decreased, while values for the C: N ratio rose. Tree and shrub species came to be fewer in number as numbers of undergrowth species rose. There were also increases in the roles of species characterising moist verges (Galio-Urticenea), as well as geophytes. Group D communities likewise encountered rising groundwater levels, but did not seem to experience directional change otherwise, within their phytocoenoses. The sorption capacity of their soils nevertheless decreased. Overall, it was possible to note increases over the period in question when it came to numbers of species present in the tree, undergrowth and bryophyte layers. However, while the role of species characteristic for class Nardo-Callunetea increased, that of Trifolio-Geranietea species declined. And, while correlations between vegetation and soil characteristics proved to be different for each of the four groups of communities, there was no precluding model parameters differing significantly from one year of measurement to another.


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