National Park Service

About: National Park Service is a government organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & National park. The organization has 2015 authors who have published 3683 publications receiving 101930 citations. The organization is also known as: NPS & National Park Service, NPS.

Global conservation outcomes depend on marine protected areas with five key features

Abstract: In line with global targets agreed under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the number of marine protected areas (MPAs) is increasing rapidly, yet socio-economic benefits generated by MPAs remain difficult to predict and under debate1, 2. MPAs often fail to reach their full potential as a consequence of factors such as illegal harvesting, regulations that legally allow detrimental harvesting, or emigration of animals outside boundaries because of continuous habitat or inadequate size of reserve3, 4, 5. Here we show that the conservation benefits of 87 MPAs investigated worldwide increase exponentially with the accumulation of five key features: no take, well enforced, old (>10 years), large (>100 km2), and isolated by deep water or sand. Using effective MPAs with four or five key features as an unfished standard, comparisons of underwater survey data from effective MPAs with predictions based on survey data from fished coasts indicate that total fish biomass has declined about two-thirds from historical baselines as a result of fishing. Effective MPAs also had twice as many large (>250 mm total length) fish species per transect, five times more large fish biomass, and fourteen times more shark biomass than fished areas. Most (59%) of the MPAs studied had only one or two key features and were not ecologically distinguishable from fished sites. Our results show that global conservation targets based on area alone will not optimize protection of marine biodiversity. More emphasis is needed on better MPA design, durable management and compliance to ensure that MPAs achieve their desired conservation value.

Estimated stocks of circumpolar permafrost carbon with quantified uncertainty ranges and identified data gaps

Abstract: Soils and other unconsolidated deposits in the northern circumpolar permafrost region store large amounts of soil organic carbon (SOC). This SOC is potentially vulnerable to remobilization following soil warming and permafrost thaw, but SOC stock estimates were poorly constrained and quantitative error estimates were lacking. This study presents revised estimates of permafrost SOC stocks, including quantitative uncertainty estimates, in the 0–3 m depth range in soils as well as for sediments deeper than 3 m in deltaic deposits of major rivers and in the Yedoma region of Siberia and Alaska. Revised estimates are based on significantly larger databases compared to previous studies. Despite this there is evidence of significant remaining regional data gaps. Estimates remain particularly poorly constrained for soils in the High Arctic region and physiographic regions with thin sedimentary overburden (mountains, highlands and plateaus) as well as for deposits below 3 m depth in deltas and the Yedoma region. While some components of the revised SOC stocks are similar in magnitude to those previously reported for this region, there are substantial differences in other components, including the fraction of perennially frozen SOC. Upscaled based on regional soil maps, estimated permafrost region SOC stocks are 217 ± 12 and 472 ± 27 Pg for the 0–0.3 and 0–1 m soil depths, respectively (±95% confidence intervals). Storage of SOC in 0–3 m of soils is estimated to 1035 ± 150 Pg. Of this, 34 ± 16 Pg C is stored in poorly developed soils of the High Arctic. Based on generalized calculations, storage of SOC below 3 m of surface soils in deltaic alluvium of major Arctic rivers is estimated as 91 ± 52 Pg. In the Yedoma region, estimated SOC stocks below 3 m depth are 181 ± 54 Pg, of which 74 ± 20 Pg is stored in intact Yedoma (late Pleistocene ice- and organic-rich silty sediments) with the remainder in refrozen thermokarst deposits. Total estimated SOC storage for the permafrost region is ∼1300 Pg with an uncertainty range of ∼1100 to 1500 Pg. Of this, ∼500 Pg is in non-permafrost soils, seasonally thawed in the active layer or in deeper taliks, while ∼800 Pg is perennially frozen. This represents a substantial ∼300 Pg lowering of the estimated perennially frozen SOC stock compared to previous estimates.

Ecological Thresholds: The Key to Successful Environmental Management or an Important Concept with No Practical Application?

Abstract: An ecological threshold is the point at which there is an abrupt change in an ecosystem quality, property or phenomenon, or where small changes in an environmental driver produce large responses in the ecosystem. Analysis of thresholds is complicated by nonlinear dynamics and by multiple factor controls that operate at diverse spatial and temporal scales. These complexities have challenged the use and utility of threshold concepts in environmental management despite great concern about preventing dramatic state changes in valued ecosystems, the need for determining critical pollutant loads and the ubiquity of other threshold-based environmental problems. In this paper we define the scope of the thresholds concept in ecological science and discuss methods for identifying and investigating thresholds using a variety of examples from terrestrial and aquatic environments, at ecosystem, landscape and regional scales. We end with a discussion of key research needs in this area.

Pattern, process, and natural disturbance in vegetation

Abstract: Natural disturbances have been traditionally defined in terms of major catastrophic events originating in the physical environment and, hence, have been regarded as exogenous agents of vegetation change. Problems with this view are: (1) there is a gradient from minor to major events rather than a uniquely definable set of major catastrophes for each kind of disturbance, and (2) some disturbances are initiated or promoted by the biotic component of the system. Floras are rich in disturbance-adapted species. Disturbances have probably exerted selective pressure in the evolution of species strategies. Heathland cyclic successions and gap-phase dynamics in forests have been viewed as endogenous patterns in vegetation. When death in older individividuals imposes a rhythm on community reproduction, dynamics may indeed be the result of endogenous factors. However, documented cases of senescence in perennial plants are few and many cyclic successions and cases of gap-phase dynamics are initiated by physical factors. Forest dynamics range from those that are the result of individual tree senescence and fall, through those that are the result of blowdown of small groups of healthy trees, to those that are the result of large windstorms which level hectares of forest. The effect of wind ranges from simple pruning of dead plant parts to widespread damage of living trees. Wind speed is probably inversely proportional to occurrence frequency. Disturbances vary continuously. There is a gradient from those community dynamics that are initiated by endogenous factors to those initiated by exogenous factors. Evolution has mediated between species and environment; disturbances are often caused by physical factors but the occurrence and outplay of disturbances may be a function of the state of the community as well. Natural disturbances in North American vegetation are: fire, windstorm, ice storm, ice push on shores, cryogenic soil movement, temperature fluctuation, precipitation variability, alluvial processes, coastal processes, dune movement, saltwater inundation, landslides, lava flows, karst processes, and biotic disturbances. Disturbances vary regionally and within one landscape as a function of topography and other site variables and are characterized by their frequency, predictability, and magnitude. The landscape level is important in assessing disturbance regime. Disturbances and cyclic successions belong to the same class of events—that of recurrent dynamics in vegetation structure—irrespective of cause. Dynamics may result from periodic, abrupt, and catastrophic environmental factors or they may result from an interaction of the changing susceptability of the community and some regular environmental factor. In any case, the dynamics result in heterogeneous landscapes; the species adapted to this heterogeneity are numerous, suggesting their long time importance. The importance of disturbance regime as part of the environmental context of vegetation means that allogenic and autogenic models of vegetation are difficult to apply. Species composition can be seen to be a function of disturbance regime, as well as other environmental variables. Competitive replacement in succession occurs, then, only as disturbances cease to operate and can be viewed as allogenic adjustment to a new disturbance-free environment. Competitive divergence, separation of role, and competition avoidance may, in fact, underlie successional patterns traditionally viewed as the competitive replacement of inferior species by superiorly adapted climax species. The importance of ongoing dynamics is also difficult to reconcile with the concept of climax, founded as it is on the idea of autogenesis within a stable physical environment. Climax composition is relative to disturbance regime. Climax is only arbitrarily distinguished from succession. Climax as an organizing paradigm in plant ecology has obscured the full temporal-spatial dimensions important in understanding the vegetated landscape and the evolution of species which contribute to the landscape patterns. Whittaker’s coenocline concept is accepted with modifications: (1) natural disturbance gradients and Whittaker’s complex gradient are intimately related, (2) temporal variation in the community should be viewed as an added axis of community pattern, and (3) ongoing dynamics have important effects on specificity of species to site relations and the predictability of vegetation patterns. Recent work has suggested an r-K continuum in species strategy. In general, colonizing ability is seen as a trade-off against specialization. Frequent disruption of the community and the creation of open sites seems to result in mixes of species that are fleeting in time and do not repeat in space. Species in such mixes are often tolerant of wide environmental extremes but are compressed into early successional time if disturbance ceases. The composition of such communities is not predictable from site characteristics. Even communities with low disturbance frequency lack complete environmental determinism, and historical events are important in understanding present composition. Communities vary in level of environmental determinism and species differ in niche breadth and degree of site specificity. Management implications of vegetation dynamics are discussed.

Next Steps for Citizen Science

Abstract: Around the globe, thousands of research projects are engaging millions of individuals—many of whom are not trained as scientists—in collecting, categorizing, transcribing, or analyzing scientific data. These projects, known as citizen science, cover a breadth of topics from microbiomes to native bees to water quality to galaxies. Most projects obtain or manage scientific information at scales or resolutions unattainable by individual researchers or research teams, whether enrolling thousands of individuals collecting data across several continents, enlisting small armies of participants in categorizing vast quantities of online data, or organizing small groups of volunteers to tackle local problems.