National Park Stewardship and 'Vital Signs' Monitoring

Abstract

Place-based conservation strategies require that stewards know and understand the targeted ecosystems, restore impaired resources, protect the ecosystems, and connect people wholeheartedly to the places. These actions are the cornerstones of stewardship: know, restore, protect and connect. Knowledge of ecosystem structure and functioning is first among equals in stewardship. Monitoring the ecological equivalent of medical 'vital signs' is the quickest, surest, and cheapest way to discover and track ecosystem dynamics. Monitoring ecological 'vital signs' can determine status and trends of ecosystem integrity and establish limits of normal variation. It can also provide early warnings of situations that require intervention, and help frame research questions to determine chains of cause and consequence. The power and probabilistic nature of biological interactions in ecosystems preclude effective use of deterministic modeling to accurately predict ecosystem behavior. Therefore, ongoing monitoring is required to reliably increase knowledge of system dynamics. The National Park Service has begun to identify and monitor the ecological equivalent of medical 'vital signs' in 32 networks of 270 parks. The National Park Service seeks opportunities to partner with other agencies and institutions in the stewardship and monitoring of parks.

Introduction

In 1980 Channel Islands National Park was established to preserve unimpaired, self-sustaining examples of coastal ecosystems off the coast of southern California. The region's first conservation designation came in 1938 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Channel Islands National Monument to protect the islands of Santa Barbara and Anacapa. Since then, many governmental bodies have conferred a variety of conservation designations on the five of the eight California Channel Islands and the sea around them that comprise the park (Table 1). In this paper I describe the design, structure, and function of an environmental 'vital signs' monitoring program instituted to inform, guide, and evaluate stewardship of Channel Islands National Park, California. The National Park Service leads an informal coalition of Federal and State agencies and private interests that sponsors and funds this 'vital signs' program, each acting under its own aegis.

The National Park Service mission , the ecology of the Channel Islands, and the regional human threats to nature in the park combine to determine the function and thereby the structure of the 'vital signs' monitoring program. The major threats to nature that focused the Channel Islands National Park 'Vital Signs' Monitoring Program included:

• fragmentation of habitats, including loss of nearby mainland habitat and island erosion;
• pollution of air and water;
• invasions of alien species, such as South African ice plant, Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, Australian gum trees, Eucalyptus spp., feral pigs, Sus scrofa and sheep, Ovis aries; and
• loss of soil and fog-drip precipitation.

Since research to reliably establish ecological chains of cause and consequence requires extensive, experimental manipulation, it was considered beyond the scope of a 'vital signs' monitoring program. The Channel Islands National Park 'Vital Signs' Monitoring Program was designed with four goals. They were to:

1. determine present and future ecosystem integrity,
2. establish normal limits of resource variation empirically,
3. provide early diagnosis of abnormal conditions, and
4. identify potential agents of abnormal change.

Design Process and Step-down Plan

At Channel Islands National Park, measures of population dynamics or demographics have proven to be good, practical, ecological 'vital signs'. Especially effective for biota are measures of abundance, geographic distribution, age structure, reproduction, juvenile recruitment, and growth and mortality rates. Basic environmental parameters, such as sea temperature, precipitation, and meteorological measures are also useful 'vital signs'. Collectively, these population and environmental parameters allow projections of future conditions, which provide early warnings of impending issues. These measures integrate a broad variety of normal environmental and human- induced stresses, including subtle chronic stress, as well as defining critical acute events. They also directly measure effects of remedial actions, such as removal of alien species or mitigation of visitor disturbance.

Identifying and measuring 'vital signs' of ecosystems is a difficult and complex endeavor involving more than 40 discrete but interdependent activities or projects (Davis 1989, 1993). This complexity, and the magnitude of the work, can overwhelm those who are faced with endangered species and severely constrained by limited fiscal and personnel resources. Organizing the work into a logical four-tiered step-down plan (Phenicie and Lyons 1973) reduces the apparent complexity. At Channel Islands National Park it also facilitated explaining the need for a 'vital signs' monitoring program and marketing it to potential supporters and collaborators. This process also allowed all participants and supporters to see easily how their contributions related to the whole effort. After setting program goals, as indicated above, the next three steps were to:

1. develop a conceptual ecosystem model,
2. conduct design studies of ecosystem components to establish monitoring protocols, and
3. implement monitoring.

Decomposing the overwhelming job of designing and implementing a monitoring program into feasible tasks and fundable projects helped overcome inertia, facilitated communication among participants, and provided a record for future generations of participants to see how and why particular components and parameters were selected as 'vital signs'.

Successful conservation at the beginning of the 21st Century requires coalitions of many interests. The example described here may appear to be an ideal, with near-adequate professional staff and funding. However, it began in 1980 with just one person and an idea. Only the commitment of a park superintendent to science-based stewardship and a single sentence in a Federal law that allocated no funding, but nevertheless called for "an inventory of all species, both marine and terrestrial…with biennial reports…for ten years", spawned this pioneering program (16 USC 410ff).

The process used to design and implement the Channel Islands National Park 'Vital Signs' Monitoring Program was described and marketed using a step-down diagram (Phenicie and Lyons 1973). The plan showed explicitly the relationships both among the 41 detailed technical program elements and between those elements and the park's mission (Davis et al.1994). A step-down diagram starts with program goals on the top line. On the line below the program goals the plan indicates all of the actions and only those actions required to achieve the goals on the line above it. The actions on the second line become the goals for the next step down, indicated on the third line. This step-down process continues to decompose large complex tasks or programs into feasible actions until the actions on the bottom line are sufficiently simple to define a single research project or monitoring protocol. The process could be continued further to detail parts of monitoring protocols, such as individual sampling procedures, but then the detail of the plan obscures the relationships of actions and goals for the entire 'vital signs' program and the plan loses its educational effectiveness.

For example, the original goals of the Channel Islands National Park program were to develop and institute a 'Vital Signs' Monitoring Program that:

1. determines present and future ecosystem integrity,
2. establishes normal limits of resource variation empirically,
3. provides early diagnosis of abnormal conditions, and
4. identifies potential agents of abnormal change.

The next tier on the step-down diagram indicates that the program can achieve its four goals if and only if the program develops a conceptual model of park ecosystems, conducts design studies to develop monitoring protocols for ecological 'vital signs', and monitors system conditions (Davis et al. 1994). In outline form, the remaining steps for the park's three-tier plan (below the program goals) are:

1.1 Set limits (boundaries) on the ecosystem to monitor
1.2 Inventory natural resources

1.2.1 Review literature for resources occurrence and distribution
1.2.2 Conduct field surveys for inadequately-known taxa

1.3 Make an exhaustive list of mutually exclusive components of the system

1.3.1 Define biogeographic units, e.g., watersheds, islands, ocean currents, and consider a variety of scales of time and space
1.3.2 Determine appropriate taxonomic divisions, e.g., terrestrial flora, birds, aquatic communities, herpetofauna

1.4 Identify relationships among system components and processes that drive the system, e.g., fire, habitat connectivity, nutrient flux, predation, and competition

2.1 Select critical components from conceptual model to serve as 'vital signs'

2.1.1 Establish selection criteria for taxa, represent all ecological roles, special legal status, endemic, alien, exploited, dominant, common, and charismatic species
2.1.2 Apply criteria to system components identified in conceptual model, including taxa, processes, and physical and chemical environmental features

2.2 Set component priorities

2.2.1 Review legislation, executive orders, and policies
2.2.2 Consider threats to ecosystems and resources (what are the known stressors?)
2.2.3 Review knowledge of each component (can it be interpreted and applied?)
2.2.4 Review monitoring technology for each component (what's feasible?)
2.2.5 Consider other agency responsibilities and programs as opportunities for partnerships

2.3 Design monitoring protocols

2.3.1 Review scientific literature
2.3.2 Select component parameters to monitor (identify "vital signs")
2.3.3 Select and test data acquisition systems
2.3.4 Establish an information management system
2.3.5 Prepare standardized report forms
2.3.6 Demonstrate protocol efficacy in field tests

3.1 Obtain funding

3.1.1 Market monitoring needs
3.1.2 Establish accountability for resources
3.1.3 Obtain scientific and management review

3.2 Obtain personnel

3.2.1 Determine knowledge and skills required
3.2.2 Prepare an organizational plan, with position descriptions and performance standards
3.2.3 Recruit and hire personnel
3.2.4 Establish career ladders and training programs

3.3 Implement monitoring protocols
3.4 Synthesize information from monitoring and apply to appropriate issues

3.4.1 Determine historical or nominal values for monitored parameters
3.4.2 Compare current and historical values
3.4.3 Examine values and variations for correlated patterns in space and time with other components, events, and threats

The Channel Islands National Park 'Vital Signs' Monitoring Program

Conceptual Model

The generic step-down plan above describes the design process used to develop a 'vital signs' program for Channel Islands National Park. After setting program goals, the next step was to create a conceptual model of the park that all of the collaborators who helped design the program understood and accepted. It included descriptions of the park's biological features, environmental setting, land and sea forms, and threats to the park's ecological integrity, e.g., alien species, unsustainable uses, and pollution. The following description of the park and its environs, combined with the step-down plan, summarizes the conceptual model in text.

A chain of eight islands, shrouded in fog and surrounded by some the world's largest kelp forests (Macrocystis pyrifera), guard the last remnants of America's natural Mediterranean coast. Five of the eight California Channel Islands and more than 310,000 ha of the surrounding seabed, are protected by a plethora of conservation designations (Table 1). These islands bridge two biogeographical provinces. In a remarkably small space, they harbor the biologic diversity of 1,500 km of the North American west coast.

The nearby confluence of ocean currents and a persistent upwelling zone bring nutrients up from the dark seabed into abundant brilliant sunlight, building one of the most productive food webs on earth, with more than 1,000 species of marine fish, invertebrates, and algae. Myriad northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), sea lions (Zalophus spp.), fur seals (Callorhinus spp.), harbor seals (Phoca sp.), Cassin's auklets (Ptychoramphus aleuticus), Xantus' murrelets (Endomychura hypolencia), cormorants (Phalacrocorax spp.), pigeon guillemots (Cepphus columba), petrels (Oceanodroma spp.), gulls (Larus spp.), and brown pelicans (Pelicanus occidentalis) breed and raise their young on these islands, near abundant food and safe from disturbance on the 240 km meridian of pristine sand beaches, rocky tide pools, and shear cliffs that rings the islands at the sea's edge. Twenty-six kinds of cetaceans cavort around the islands, including vast schools of sleek pacific whitesided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens), families of acrobatic humpback whales (Megaptera novaengliae), swift Orcas (Orcinus orca), and the largest animals that ever graced the earth blue whales (Sibbaldus musculus).

A mild Mediterranean climate, with short wet winters, long dry summers, and extensive coastal fog, creates a fascinating array of plant and animal communities on the islands. Isolation protects island species from competition with large diverse mainland populations and from destruction by human activities. Unique island forms of majestic island oaks (Quercus tomentella), ironwood (Lyonothamnus floribundus), torrey pine (Pinus torreyana), and other trees tower above rippling grasslands interspersed with fields of coastal sage (Artemisia californica and Salvia spp.) and bush lupine (Lupinus arboreus). Island wildlife is rich along the riparian corridors of more than a dozen perennial streams that dissect the gently rolling marine terraces which mark ancient uplifted shorelines. Small populations and limited island habitats relegate many species to rare and endangered status, and accelerate evolution of unique life forms. Nearly 10% of island plants exist only on these islands today, while fossils record the past presence of giant mice, flightless ducks, and mammoths.

Numerous archeological sites on the islands reveal a rich human culture spanning more than 100 centuries (13,000 years). Today, the islands sit precariously at the edge of a human tide that threatens to engulf them. Nearly 18 million people live within 300 km. These people bring worldwide demands and cultural values for coastal resources from more than 170 human cultures. Paradoxically, the clear, cool waters of the Pacific Ocean both facilitate and limit public access to the islands. Each year, 100,000 SCUBA divers explore island reefs and kelp forests. Boaters find shelter in nearly 100 secluded anchorages. Primitive campgrounds provide intrepid visitors intimate views, revealing each island's unique nature. Thousands of day-visitors glimpse island wonders and peek at marine mysteries in tide pools left by the sea's brief twice-daily retreats.

Air and water pollution from nearby metropolitan and industrial developments threatens island ecosystems. Sheep and cattle ranching on the islands introduced alien species, greatly accelerated erosion, and reduced the height of vegetation from meters to centimeters. The reduced height of vegetation further dried the already near-desert islands by virtually eliminating the capacity of tall shrubs to capture moisture from the marine fog blown across the islands by steady sea winds. Island waters used to yield thousands of tons of fish, shellfish, and kelp annually to commercial and recreational fishers, producing some 20% of California's nearshore landings from only 3% of the state's coastal waters. Recent collapses of fishery-targeted populations revealed that managed traditionally, neither the fisheries nor the populations were sustainable. All of these human activities have altered native island and ocean communities and collectively threaten their survival. Normal dynamics of these systems, exemplified by El Niño and La Niña events, mask human influences and make management uncertain, at best.

The conceptual model described briefly above includes biological resources (populations and communities), environmental forces (climate and ocean currents), land forms (islands and ocean basins), and management issues (fisheries, pollution, grazing, alien species, and habitat fragmentation). Specific features of the California Channel Islands ecosystem structure and function, combined with management issues, shaped the 'vital signs' program by determining what information was needed to address the issues so nature would be left unimpaired for the enjoyment of future human generations. A site-specific step-down plan, developed in 1980, was used to identify critical system components ("vital signs") in a conceptual ecological model (Davis et al. 1994). The plan also indicated which components, in priority order, needed to be monitored, and identified the actions needed to implement a sustained monitoring program in the park.

The 'vital signs' program, begun in 1981, endures because it has proven to be a cost-effective way to reduce the uncertainty of management actions by providing reliable information about ecosystem 'vital signs'. For example, 'vital signs' provided early warnings of population collapses in exploited abalone (Haliotis spp.) and of alien plant invasions. These warnings gave resource managers, the public and politicians time to respond before remedial actions became too expensive or impossible to enact. The information also provided confidence that actions were actually required. 'Vital signs' information also guided feral animal eradication programs, e.g., rabbits, rats, and pigs, by revealing the most successful strategies. By documenting success in meeting milestones and by estimating time and costs required for complete eradication, monitoring encouraged persistence, which led to successful eradications.

Early documented successes also encouraged many people and agencies to participate. The Channel Islands National Park 'Vital Signs' Monitoring Program was the result of a remarkable collaboration of State, Federal, and private interests. The Federal government contributed scientific expertise and management oversight from the Department of the Interior's National Park Service, Geological Survey, Minerals Management Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service. These agencies were joined in the federal family by the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (National Marine Sanctuaries and Fisheries), and the State Department's Man-in-the-Biosphere Program (now in the Department of Agriculture). The State of California contributed university scientists and facilities, Department of Fish and Game biologists and fishery managers, and guidance from regional water quality boards and county air quality boards. Private interests involved in the program included The Nature Conservancy, the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy, and various local groups, such as the Channel Islands Council of Divers, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, and Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.

Design Studies

Short-term research studies to develop monitoring protocols were the core design activity. A modified Delphi approach (Linstone and Turoff 1975) worked well to identify what design studies were needed. A group of experts on the California Channel Islands shared their individual conceptual models of the park with each other in a workshop and agreed on a generic model. They then used that knowledge to select ecosystem components to monitor, such as sea birds, kelp forest, or terrestrial vegetation, and to decide what parameters could be used as ecological 'vital signs'.

Experts on each component (seabirds, kelp forests, etc.) then discussed specific parameters and appropriate spatial and temporal scales for monitoring. For example, to meet 'vital signs' goals, plant ecologists decided that island plants needed to be sampled at three spatial scales: individual species' populations, communities, and landscapes, and at respectively increasing time scales of one to five years. It is important to recognize that the 'vital signs' design process is an iterative one, and to recognize the limitations of current ecological expertise that approximates a 17th Century level of medical knowledge. Consequently, one should acknowledge that the goal of the 'vital signs' design process is to identify and define a reasonable starting point, not to find a final solution at the outset. It is also important to recognize that this program was designed to further understanding of ecosystems, and not as a regulatory tool to define threshold values that would trigger predetermined management responses to changes in environmental conditions.

The list of 14 initial design studies (Table 2) identified for the Channel Islands National Park 'Vital Signs' Monitoring Program constituted a skeleton for the collective conceptual model of the park (Davis 1989). Design studies, that each lasted three to five years, were conducted for each component. Each design study addressed the same five tasks. They were to:

1. select index taxa or factors for each component
2. develop sampling techniques
3. test analytical approaches
4. develop report formats and content
5. demonstrate the efficacy of the recommended monitoring protocol by field testing all aspects of the protocol for at least two years.

Selecting species, or other taxa, and the parameters to be measured for each was the first order of business for each design study. For biota, this process involved applying six selection criteria to existing inventories (Table 3). Where existing inventories were inadequate to offer a range of selections, field surveys were conducted. Field surveys were needed for terrestrial invertebrates, amphibians, and reptiles. The experts at the design workshop considered inventories of the other components adequate. The purpose of the criteria was to assure selection of a representative sample of all taxa in each component. In other words, it was to assure that the selected "vital signs" incorporated a broad array of ecological roles, including primary producers and low, medium, and high-level consumers, long-lived and short-lived species, sessile filter feeders as well as mobile grazers and hunters. The next step was to assure that common and dominant species that characterized communities and provided physical structure were well represented. The monitoring program also had to include all endemic, exploited, and alien species, as well as all taxa with special legal status, e.g., endangered species. Finally, if all other criteria were equal, they selected heroic, charismatic species with human constituencies, i.e., species about which the public already cared and empathized.

The next concerns were where and when to sample. Site selection began with existing inventories that included distribution maps, e.g. kelp forests. Where do the species, or other elements, of the component occur? When does reproduction occur? Monitoring locations needed to provide replicate sites within the range of conditions or along gradients. For example, kelp forests in the park occur along two biogeographic and physical gradients. Biogeographically, kelp forest assemblages of algae, invertebrates, and fishes in the cold, nutrient-rich waters of the western islands in the Oregonian zone (that stretches from the park to Alaska) are quite distinct from those in the warm waters around the southeastern islands in the Californian zone (that extends southward from the park to the middle of Baja California in Mexico). A third assemblage occupies a transition zone between these two extremes. Physically, kelp forests north of the islands are buffeted by winter storms from the Gulf of Alaska, while those on the southern shores are protected from winter storms. The south coast kelp forests are exposed to large summer swells generated from winter storms in the Southern Hemisphere and nourished by seasonal upwelling from adjacent oceanic basins. These different physical settings create six discrete kelp forest zones (three biogeographic zones by two exposure zones). At least two monitoring sites were established in each of the six zones. Fishing has a major influence on kelp forest structure and functioning, so additional monitoring sites were selected to compare fished with unfished kelp forests, yielding a total of 16 sites (Davis 1988).

Fixed monitoring sites were selected generally using stratified random approaches, with stratification based on conservative, stable, physical features as described above for kelp forests. Fixed sites were established because the primary purpose of the program was to measure change over time, not to make population estimates for the entire park. Just as a physician achieves reliable results by putting the thermometer in the same location in each patient, fixed ecological monitoring sites need to be established so that changes in parameters reflect changes over time and not within-site variation. Therefore, each site was carefully marked to assure that sampling occured in precisely the same place every year.

Sampling techniques are often species and place-dependent, so otherwise standard techniques needed to be adapted to particular sites and situations. Resolution of these matters was the main function of design studies. Goals for accuracy and precision of monitoring at Channel Islands National Park were set a priori by park managers to detect 40% changes in mean values, with =0.05 and =0.20 . The people who use the information made these guidelines explicit, based largely on concerns about cost and accountability for the nation's heritage. They determined that the park couldn't afford to detect 5-10% changes and couldn't afford not to detect 50% losses of critical resources such as endemic species. This 40% goal was a practical compromise between cost and risk, to be tested with experience. Thus far, it appears to work. These same parameters of accuracy and precision also established important standards for periodic evaluations of program effectiveness.

A variety of sampling techniques was required for each biological component selected for monitoring. For example, more than 1,000 species of plants and animals inhabit kelp forests in the park. The Delphi work group selected 63 taxa to monitor at the 16 sites to examine biological responses to global climate events, such as El Niño, and to differentiate the effects of regional pollution from those of take by fishing. Abundant, ubiquitous, discrete species (non-colonial) such as sea urchins and giant kelp are relatively easy to count and measure in small quadrats placed in a stratified random fashion around a fixed 100-m long transect line. The design study resolved the minimum number of quadrats needed (20) and how large each needed to be (1-5 m2) to reduce within-site variation and achieve the established statistical goal (to detect 40% changes in mean values) at all sites. Rarer species that tend to clump, such as abalone and lobster, required larger plot sizes to resolve the same degree of change in abundance. A different sampling strategy based on band-transects (12, 3 m X 20 m) was designed for that purpose.

Another function of design studies was to develop and adapt new technologies to provide the most accurate, precise, and cost-effective techniques. For example, since colonial species, such as anemones, bryozoans, and algae that literally carpet the sea floor cannot be counted easily, a 1,000 randomly selected points in 50 plots were used to estimate cover as an index of abundance. Recording observations for 15 taxa at 1,000 points at each site was a significant bookkeeping exercise for divers underwater. SCUBA was the standard equipment used by scientists to access kelp forests, but it required extensive, slow and tedious record keeping underwater by chilled divers to record up to 15,000 observations of bottom cover at each site. Using equipment more commonly used in commercial diving that provided air and communications to and from the surface shifted record keeping activities to warm, dry data recorders at the surface who simply recorded observations dictated to them by biologist-divers. It also increased the speed and accuracy of the sampling. Recording bottom cover and abundance of colonial taxa required an average of seven hours at each site using SCUBA. Having divers dictate the observations to a person recording on a ship at the sea surface reduced the average sampling time to 90 minutes, a savings of 330 minutes of very expensive bottom time for each site. That's the equivalent of an entire week's diving for a crew of eight each year. Because the surface recorders were unaffected by nitrogen narcosis that plagues divers, data quality was also measurably improved.

Design studies also needed to invent new techniques and to test old, standard ones. Fish have always been difficult to sample with non-lethal means because they are mobile, patchy, and sensitive to observer presence. Most kelp forest fishes are long-lived residents of relatively small areas. Many live 30-70 years in one place, once they settle to the bottom as juveniles. Traditional fishery sampling involves taking fish permanently from the population with fishing gear, which would have serious deleterious effects on long-lived resident populations. While testing various non-lethal assessment techniques in the early 1980s, Davis and Anderson (1989) discovered that traditional, non-destructive, in situ fish population assessments had very low accuracy. The program continues to explore appropriate techniques for sampling fishes (Davis et al. 1996a), and is currently testing roving-diver (Bohnsack and Bannerot 1986) and timed-species counts, using the resulting monitoring data to evaluate the techniques.

Implement Monitoring

The detailed monitoring protocols for each component were documented in peer-reviewed handbooks and published in loose-leaf notebook form to facilitate revisions (Davis and Halvorson 1988). Initially (1988), 12 handbooks were published for pinnipeds, seabirds, rocky intertidal ecosystems, kelp forests, terrestrial vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, and mammals), land birds, terrestrial vegetation, fisheries, park visitors, and weather. A protocol for sand beaches and coastal lagoons was added in 1990, and an information management plan was completed in 2002. Most of these protocols are available through the park's website at www.nps.gov/chis. The protocols are reviewed for design performance and updated at ten-year intervals. The first design review was conducted on the kelp forest protocol by an external review panel of statisticians and kelp forest ecologists in 1995. The review panel affirmed the original design criteria and made a few minor suggestions to improve compatibility with other kelp forest studies (Davis et al. 1996a). The statisticians on the panel asserted that a prime directive for such programs was to maintain the continuity of the data collection and make only minor changes with ample dual sampling to allow comparisons between original techniques and new 'improved' techniques to assure that calibration and correlation are valid. The seabird, rocky intertidal community, terrestrial vegetation, and land bird protocols were also reviewed with similar findings.

Using Monitoring Information to Resolve Environmental Issues in Parks

The information generated by this program has significantly reduced uncertainty for management decisions and reduced the costs of resolving serious threats to the park's ecological integrity. However, at Channel Islands National Park the program constitutes a relatively large investment in personnel, infrastructure, and operating funds. Conserving the park, while providing for visitor enjoyment and assuring it is left unimpaired for future generations, requires a team effort by the entire park staff of approximately 60 people and many partners. However, fewer than 12 of these people dedicate most their time to the monitoring program. They are organized into three working groups: one for marine and coastal resources, one for island resources, and one for information management. Change in staff is inevitable in any long-term program, and should be encouraged in order to keep people enthused about their work and willing to grow both professionally and personally. This turnover in staff presents some special problems for maintaining continuity in data collection, archiving, analysis, and reporting because it is difficult to record every significant detail of such a complex endeavor. With at least three people on each work group, there is usually at least one experienced person available to train new staff and to help improve the operation. It was difficult to maintain institutional continuity in field operations and data management with fewer than three people in each work group.

Information Management

Information is a primary product of an ecological monitoring program. How the information is managed (communicated, archived, and made available) largely determines a program's efficacy, reputation for reliability, and image among critics, peers, and advocates. Each of the 13 peer-reviewed monitoring protocols in the Channel Islands National Park program includes instructions for data management. In addition to the effort required to collect and record monitoring information, 35-40% of the monitoring program's fiscal and human resources are spent on storing, communicating, and making available the information collected and produced by the 'vital signs' program (Dye 2002). The usual, more theoretical, estimates that information management should consume only 10-15 % of the resources of an ecological monitoring program seriously underestimate the effort required in practice (Royal Society of Canada 1995).

Other practical information management lessons learned during development of the Channel Islands 'Vital Signs' Program include:

1. use standard, commercially available, software, i.e., avoid custom programs

2. specify common fields for all records that relate all databases, e.g., date and location

3. plan for and embrace change. Not only are ecosystems dynamic, engineered systems used to manage information are also dynamic.

Annual reports for each monitoring protocol, e.g., kelp forest or island birds, describe current resource conditions, archive annual data, document monitoring activities that may vary from year to year, provide an end-point for otherwise endless monitoring activities, and document changes in monitoring protocols. The annual reports are also emotionally important for the monitoring staff, and provide opportunities to market the program and its accomplishments among the funding agencies, academia, and the general public. Along with annual reports, formal peer-reviews of protocols, operations, and results at 10-year intervals help to assure program vitality and relevance. During protocol reviews, expert scientists re-examine design criteria for accuracy and precision, analyze data for power to resolve changes, and recommend protocol revisions. This process provides a formal history of program evolution that helps assure data continuity while employing modern technologies and methodologies.

Frequent and extensive analysis and synthesis of monitoring data facilitates discovery of new features and characteristics of monitored systems. Outbreaks of fatal new diseases, such as withering syndrome in black abalone, Haliotis cracherodii, were previously unknown, in part because no rigorous ecological monitoring took place before the 'vital signs' program (Richards and Davis 1993). The 'vital signs' program revealed not only that black abalone abundance collapsed in the park, but also provided a regional geographic and multi-year temporal description of the spread of excessive mortality (Richards and Davis 1993). Monitoring characterized the size structure of the surviving abalone population, which exonerated fishing as a proximal cause of the population collapse. It also defined a density at which adult abalone populations ceased to reproduce (50%). These quantitative descriptions directed subsequent research to examine potential infectious agents, rather than toxic pollutants or poaching and other human activities, and led to the discovery of a new species of pathogen (Friedman et al. 1995).

The sustained time-series data at landscape scales that 'vital signs' programs can produce permit resolution of complex environmental issues too difficult to address with typical ecological studies focused on meter-square plots for one or two seasons (Tilman 1989, Baskin 1997). Separating the effects of El Niño events, pollution, and fishing on coastal ecosystems requires regional (100s km) analysis over several decades. This kind of analysis is needed to achieve the levels of certainty required to guide meaningful political actions that can avoid irreversible resource damage, while sustaining economic development and exploitation of fishery resources. Monitoring data also allow research statisticians to explore previously unavailable real-world information so as to develop new analytical methodologies.

Monitoring practitioners need to publish both positive results and negative efforts. It is important to document both techniques and designs that worked, and those that did not, in peer-reviewed literature and in topical symposia so others can avoid the same mistakes. Ecological monitoring is no longer simply a compliance-mandated record of environmental parameters. Today it drives explorations at the edge of conservation biology and ecology. As such, its discoveries need to be documented, critiqued and discussed widely. Such programs need to produce models of excellence to create and sustain effective 'vital signs' monitoring.

Applications to Environmental Issues

At the California Channel Islands, 'vital signs' monitoring has helped to control and eliminate invasive alien species, to detect and mitigate pollution, to recognize unsustainable uses, to change fishery management strategies, and to develop and evaluate population and ecosystem restoration methodologies. A few specific examples are described below.

As indicated above in the conceptual model of the park, alien species constitute an ever-increasing threat to the park. Stewards of the California Channel Islands have used the monitoring program to direct and evaluate removal of several alien species, including burros on San Miguel Island, European hares on Santa Barbara Island, feral pigs on Santa Rosa Island, and South African iceplant on Anacapa Island. Before instituting monitoring programs, eradication efforts were sporadic and ineffective. Numerous efforts were made to remove feral rabbits from Santa Barbara Island in the 1950s and 1960s by hunting and spreading poison bait on the island (Sumner, 1959). None was successful until the 'vital signs' program provided specific information about the effectiveness of various population control methods (trapping vs. hunting), rabbit population trends, and reliable cost and time estimates for complete eradication. By reducing the uncertainly of success through monitoring, the eradication program gained enough support to sustain the effort long enough to succeed.

Even before the 'vital signs' program began, monitoring wildlife populations in the park provided an early warning of regional pollution with global consequences. Monitoring reproduction and recruitment in California brown pelican rookeries on Anacapa Island identified pesticide (DDT) pollution in the Southern California Bight, and provided sufficient time to ban DDT and restore pelican productivity (Anderson and Gress 1983). Today the park's 'vital signs' program indicates clearly that DDT is still a problem in coastal ecosystems as evidenced in continuing reproductive difficulties experienced by peregrine falcons and bald eagles (Detrich and Garcelon 1986). The 'vital signs' program indicates that progress is being made however, which thereby encourages people (society) to continue abatement activities.

'Vital signs' programs also helped to decide when human intervention in park ecosystem dynamics was appropriate, such as when to suppress forest fires or let them burn. The Channel Islands National Park rocky intertidal monitoring protocol was modified and applied to Cabrillo National Monument, in San Diego, California in 1989 (Engle and Davis 2000a). In 1992, the San Diego's municipal sewage treatment effluent discharge pipe broke and dumped 16 billion gallons of treated effluent into the sea over a two month period less than a kilometer from the monument's monitored tide pools. Many people were rightfully concerned about marine life in the tide pools and adjacent kelp forests (Tegner et al. 1995). Objective information from pre-spill monitoring established clearly that the effluent had no immediate negative effect on the 15 vital sign taxa monitored (Engle and Davis 2000b). Closing the tide pool area to visitation during those two months in order to protect visitors from potential health hazards in the effluent reduced trampling and other visitor-related disturbances. The consequences were increased abundances of most 'vital sign' taxa.

The 'vital signs' program in this case saved unnecessary litigation that often occurs in such situations when people believe, in the absence of knowledge, that damage is self-evident. The two-month closure associated with the effluent spill constituted a large environmental experiment unlikely to be conducted intentionally. Since the 'vital signs' program was in place, it was possible to measure the effects of the event and to separate the longer-term trends in populations associated with regional environmental events, such as El Niño. For example, the chronic loss of California mussels, Mytilus californicus, and feather boa kelp, Egregia menzesii, recorded for three years before the effluent spill, continued at the same rate during and after the spill. While ground cover of ephemeral algae and sea grass, Phyllospadix sp., increased dramatically during the same events (Engle and Davis 2000b).

Many fisheries are managed and evaluated largely on the basis of fishery-dependent landings data that may not accurately reflect changes in fished populations (Schroeder et al. 2001). Fishery-independent monitoring provides essential corroborative information for fishery managers (Botsford et al. 1997). Ambiguous fishery landings data obscured the catastrophic serial depletion of five species of abalone (Haliotis spp.) and then a sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus franciscanus) to support a commercial diving fleet in southern California before monitoring data were available (Dugan and Davis 1993, State of California 1995, Davis 1998). As a result, fishing exhausted abalone populations before fishery management policies could be changed, and drove at least one species to the verge of extinction (Davis et al. 1996b, 1998, Davis 2000, and Hobday et al. 2001).

Political systems are frequently frozen into inaction by uncertainty (Wurman 1990). Reliable fishery independent data from 'vital signs' monitoring allowed the political process to work by reducing uncertainty regarding abalone population status. Abalone population status could only be inferred from declining fishery landings, and those trends were persistently contested by fishing interests. Only after 'vital signs' monitoring data confirmed imminent abalone population collapses did the California Fish and Game Commission and State Legislature eventually close five abalone fisheries to prevent loss of critical brood stock, to facilitate recovery, and to reduce the costs of rebuilding depleted populations statewide.

'Vital signs' methodologies are currently being used to test a variety of different abalone population restoration techniques at the California Channel Islands (Davis 1995, Davis and Haaker 1995, Davis 2000). Ecological monitoring also provided early warning of black abalone (H. cracherodii) population collapse (Richards and Davis 1993). The ultimate population collapse was caused by infectious disease in small, dense, but fragmented populations. Monitoring provided sufficient information, early enough, to protect disease-resistant individuals from fishery harvest and to ensure survival of another generation.

Conclusions

The Channel Islands National Park 'Vital Signs' Program has become a prototype for many other national parks as well as other agencies, and it helped to catalyze a national 'vital signs' program for the U.S. National Park System. The step-down planning process described here has been used successfully in a wide variety of ecological settings with many Delphi-experts, including deserts (Organ Pipe Cactus National Park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area), mountains (Great Basin, Lassen Volcanic and North Cascades National Parks), and the New England coast (Acadia National Park). Other parks emulating the Channel Islands model include Virgin Islands (USVI), Dry Tortugas (FL), Denali (AK), Great Smokey Mountains (TN-NC), Shenandoah (VA), Olympic (WA), a cluster of small prairie parks in the mid-west, and a cluster of parks on the Colorado Plateau.

Based on the experience gained in prototype park programs, the National Park Service is currently implementing 'vital signs' programs in all 270 national park system areas with significant natural resources. Only with the information acquired by 'vital signs' programs can national parks be adequately understood, restored, maintained, and protected so that current and future generations can enjoy their wonders, receive their inspiration, and reap the values of their unimpaired ecosystems.

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Table 1. Conservation designations of the California Channel Islands in and adjacent to Channel Islands National Park.

• Santa Rosa Island ASBS
• Santa Cruz Island ASBS

Table 2. Design studies conducted for the Channel Islands National Park 'vital signs' Monitoring program in priority order as determined by the procedure described in section 2.2 of the step-down plan.

Table 3. Criteria used to select species, or other taxa, as ecological 'vital signs' for monitoring in Channel Islands National Park, California, and to assure selection of a representative sample of all species and taxa in park ecosystems.

1. Common species that dominate community structure
2. Legal status, e.g., designated endangered species
3. Park or island endemic species
4. Exploited species
5. Alien species (non-native)
6. Heroic, charismatic species with current human constituencies