2020 Regional Science & Stewardship Highlights

The first detection of white-nose syndrome in the American West in 2016 highlighted an urgent need to better understand the distribution and ecology of around twenty species of bats in Western states. To do this, ecologists in several Inventory & Monitoring Networks and National Parks joined with the USGS and ten other university and agency partners to expand the North American Bat Monitoring Program to sites across the West and develop the Northwestern Bat Hub.

For over 25 years, biologists from the National Park Service and several other agencies have collected spotted owl monitoring data to inform forest management that is guided by the multi-agency Northwest Forest Plan. Yet traditional field surveys for spotted owls have become less effective as their numbers have dwindled. Thus in 2021, the Northwest Forest Plan’s spotted owl monitoring design is transitioning to remote acoustic monitoring (also known as passive monitoring).

Extensive home losses due to wildfires have become a common feature in the state of California, especially in the Santa Monica Mountains. Fortunately, years of fire research in the Santa Monica Mountains has improved our understanding of how home hardening and defensible space can prevent structure losses from wildfires. The park partnered with the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains to develop a new website: Defensiblespace.org.

Sometimes, national parks are faced with a daunting challenge: removing ecologically disruptive, non-native mammals. Pinnacles National Park knows what it’s like. They have worked hard to successfully remove feral pigs. So when Olympic National Park needed to remove introduced mountain goats using non-lead ammunition, they sought the expertise of Pinnacles Invasive-Wildlife Biologist and Non-lead Ammunition Specialist Daniel Ryan.

Scientists with the National Park Service Pacific Island Inventory & Monitoring Network (PACN) and US Geological Survey (USGS) Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center recently teamed up to answer a pressing question: how prevalent is avian malaria in Haleakalā National Park? USGS scientists had tackled the question once before in 2002. But this time, they suspected they might find very different answers.

National Park of American Samoa harbors a diverse array of birds. Pacific Island Inventory & Monitoring Network surveys allow park managers to monitor their populations. During 2018 point counts to estimate population densities of species such as the Pacific kingfisher, crimson-crowned fruit dove, and the Samoan starling, surveyors detected the spotless crake—a rare species that has only been seen in Samoa a handful of times over the last 30 years.

Invasive non-native species represent one of the main threats to vulnerable island biodiversity. But why do some national parks in the Pacific Islands have more non-native plant species than others? Scientists examined how native plant communities, environment, and geography are associated with non-native plant species invasion across national parks in the Pacific islands to help understand this threat.

While the site of Fort Astoria in Oregon has been listed as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) since the 1960s, archaeologists had never performed methodical excavations at the site. In 2020, the regional NHL program published a report from an archaeology field school that detailed three archaeological sites associated with the NHL. This work greatly expanded our understanding of the fur trade and its aftermath at the mouth of the Columbia River.

In Pinnacles National Park, prairie and peregrine falcons’ outward similarities are on full display. Both species nest in the park’s cliff cavities and eat small mammals, birds and reptiles from the surrounding area. But how similar are they genetically? In addition, the same prairie falcons tend to return to the same places to nest in Pinnacles year after year. Are these birds part of a genetically distinct local population?

The National Park of American Samoa, in collaboration with local partners, recently discovered one of the largest known corals in the world at the island of Ta’u in park waters. This Porites coral was 22.4 X 8 meters, with a circumference of 69 meters. Scientists estimate the coral is between 420 and 652 years old. The team also documented 84 other Porites colonies measuring over 10 meters.

John Day Fossil Beds National Monument protects geologic formations that contain one of the longest, most continuous fossil records on Earth. Staff were scheduled to prospect for fossils in each of the park's five most productive areas, every four years. Yet the areas were large, and staff availability varied. They were almost never able to stick to the schedule. So they started to wonder: was a four-year cycle really the best way to find the most fossils?

Clark’s nutcrackers favor the seeds of whitebark pines, which they cache in great numbers. Whitebark pines are largely dependent on nutcrackers for seed dispersal; many cached seeds are not retrieved and go on to germinate. The tree is in decline due to native bark beetles, a non-native fungus, and climate change. Will the bird turn to other food sources? A recent study analyzes data on both species from the Cascades and Sierra to understand the risk to this mutualism.

Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument is a recently established park near Las Vegas, Nevada that conserves late Pleistocene fossils from wetland habitats that once flourished in the area. The site is important to researchers seeking to understand ancients climate of the Southwest. But what lives there now? The park has recently been developing baseline knowledge of animals and plants living in the park today and creating new outreach materials to engage visitors.

Lehman Caves in Great Basin National Park is a beautiful, well-decorated cave that has been visited since 1885. But due to its remoteness and the pandemic in 2020, many people have a hard time getting to the cave in rural Nevada. Fortunately, the half-mile tour route was scanned with LiDAR in February 2020 and the resulting pointcloud was made into a high definition virtual cave tour. Now anyone with an Internet connection can visit the cave.

In May 2020, the Scorpion Fire burned 1,395 acres on eastern Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park. Burned Area Emergency Response funding supported emergency stabilization, including environmental compliance and an inventory of burned archeological sites. With park staff, researchers, and Chumash tribal partners working together, the compliance project became one of discovery and science that provided insight on Chumash lifeways across hundreds of generations.

In September 2020, scientists released a total of 41 juvenile turtles in Golden Gate National Recreation Area, almost double the amount released in the past three years combined! This is the first year scientists released western pond turtles to Rodeo Lake, now home to 20 new turtle residents. Biologists also released 14 turtles in the Redwood Creek watershed and seven turtles to ‘donor’ ponds near the Tomales Bay Trail in the park’s northern district.

Sonoma alopecurus is a federally endangered species at Point Reyes. It is in danger of extinction, particularly as it may occur nowhere else. When grazing was eliminated a number of years ago from a wetland area that supports one of the park's largest populations, that population plummeted almost 10-fold. In 2020, the park constructed almost 2,000 feet of barbed wire fencing around the wetland to help reinstitute grazing in collaboration with a park rancher.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif.— A young male mountain lion with physical abnormalities – a kinked tail where the end is shaped like the letter “L” and only one descended testicle -- has been discovered in the Santa Monica Mountains, biologists with the National Park Service say.

The Mojave Desert Network monitors two white pine species in Great Basin National Park, limber pine and Great Basin bristlecone pine. These trees are important foundation species that support wildlife and plants. However, white pines face threats from mountain pine beetles, a warming climate, and the non-native pathogen that causes white pine blister rust. Recent collaborative monitoring documented that surveyed pines are healthy, with no incidence of blister rust infection.

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks are home to 5 species of white pine, but multiple stressors have led to sharp declines in two of these species. Scientists recently re-surveyed plots established in the 1990s for white pine blister rust (WPBR), a non-native pathogen. They found more than 50 percent of sugar pine had died, and 13 percent of western white pine – related to WPBR, mountain pine beetle, and fire. This work informs management of on-going threats to white pines.

Over a century ago, crayfish were introduced into pristine Crater Lake. Now, they have spread to 95% of the shoreline. Scientific studies show an influence from climate change: warmer water allows more crayfish to survive winter, while longer summers give crayfish more time to spread when water is warm. The studies also show that introduced crayfish reduce the biomass of bottom dwelling insects relied upon by endemic Mazama newts, which are poised to disappear as a result.

By the late 1990s, two non-native, invasive plant species had invaded 60% of Point Reyes National Seashore’s 2,200 acres of coastal bluff, dune, and scrub. That prompted the park to embark on an ambitious coastal dune restoration effort starting in 2001. However, native plants have not returned to some more inland dune areas. Could soil microorganisms be playing a role? To find out, scientists compared soil microbial communities in differently invaded and restored dune areas.

Northern Spotted Owls are annually monitored at Mount Rainier National Park as concern over the park’s population continues. Learn more about these efforts.