• Determining when the park is sick by monitoring ecological health with regular checkups,
• Treating illness (dysfunction) and repairing damage, and
• Preventing illness and mitigating threats.

To perform these functions park researchers and managers need the same kinds of information for health monitoring that physicians do: indications of current health, future conditions, and subtle chronic stresses; identification and mitigation of threats; and effective treatments for system dysfunction (Davis & Halvorson 1989). But as Davis & Halvorson (1989) point out,

Natural ecosystems are dying in parks and we can't even diagnose the illnesses, let alone identify their causes, prescribe treatments, or begin preventive actions. Our present level of knowledge of ecosystem management is equivalent to the 17th century level of human medicine.

By this analogy NPS policies of fire suppression and predator control that were in effect during the early part of this century are perhaps equivalent to the practice of blood-letting in the Middle Ages to release "evil spirits" from a patient's body. We have, of course, come a long way in the last three decades towards identifying ecosystem components, their functions and interrelationships, and threats to their persistence, but we have a long way to go.

Although the trend is changing, people continue to focus our attention and money around the world as well as in national parks on the handful of species we consider glamorous, endangered, or economically important. Not that we shouldn't be making an effort to protect grizzlies, wolves, eagles, or elk; these are aesthetically, culturally, and ecologically valuable animals, and they draw support for conservation efforts and dollars in ways that snail darters and furbish louseworts cannot.

But research has shown that the status of just one or a few species does not necessarily indicate the status of any other species or of an entire ecosystem. Every species has specific habitat requirements that are unlike those of any other species and protecting habitat for one does not guarantee the survival of another (Landres et al. 1988). For example, grizzlies are sometimes referred to as an "umbrella species" because they have such large area requirements perhaps the largest in North America. If an ecosystem can support a viable population of grizzlies it must, the reasoning goes, be able to support all the other species with smaller area requirements. In general this may be true. That there is food and shelter enough for grizzlies, however, does not guarantee that, for instance, there are enough ungulates in the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem (CCE) to support a viable wolf population; or that there are enough large trees and snags to support viable populations of cavity-nesting birds like the pileated woodpecker; or that a construction project or human trampling will not wipe out the only population of a rare plant.

The presence or absence of one species, particularly one that has narrow habitat requirements and/or is sensitive to human disturbance (e.g., the pileated woodpecker [McClelland 1979] or the American marten [Burnett 1981]), may give us a very broad warning signal about the extent to which we are altering ecosystem health, and perhaps some idea of the status of species which require similar habitats (Vemer 1983). It may also tell us about the levels of a particular environmental contaminant (e.g., Martin & Coughtrey 1982, Root 1990). In many cases, however, a population's status and trends indicate nothing more than just that the status and trends of that population (Landres et al. 1988). By focusing all our research effort and money on a few charismatic species we may be overlooking critical needs of and threats to the rest of the biota. To draw again on Davis & Halvorson's (1989) analogy, we may be "treating ingrown toenails while our patient is dying of undiagnosed cancer."

For example, until very recently we have known little about the status of amphibians in the CCE. Over the last few years, however, scientists around the world have noted that, for unknown reasons, billions of frogs, salamanders, and toads have been dying off everywhere from tropical rainforests to temperate mountain lakes. The reason for this loss is unclear; it is occurring even in places where the physical habitat has remained intact. Amphibians are extremely sensitive, and some unknown cause or combination of causes (such as excessive ultraviolet light or acid deposition) may be affecting them well before it affects us directly.

For the last three years Glacier has conducted a survey of amphibians in the park. Researchers had very little to begin with--informal observations by naturalists and a museum list which dated back to the 1930s. Three years of surveys have now covered most of the major drainages in the park and have successfully verified the list of species presumed to inhabit the area. No species seem to have disappeared so far from the park, but because of the lack of historical data it is impossible to evaluate changes in population density and location. Nevertheless, current research is critical because it will establish a baseline for studies twenty or thirty years into the future. Glacier is home to four frogs, a toad, the northern long-toed salamander, two species of garter snakes, and the western painted turtle. More quantitative data on these species will be gathered in the future through a systematic time search monitoring project which should make it possible to see and foresee trends as they develop (L. Marnell, pers. commun.).

If we are to achieve our goal of maintaining biological diversity at all levels, we need to identify the "vital signs" of park ecosystems, learn how to monitor them and to distinguish "normal" from "abnormal" conditions, and develop treatments for human impacts (Davis & Halvorson 1989). Monitoring a few large mammals and birds clearly is not enough; but we lack the time and money to monitor each and every population in a park or each and every ecosystem parameter. So which species, communities, or ecological processes should we be monitoring, and how, to get the most sensitive and cost effective estimate of our successes and failures? What are the ecological equivalents of measuring a human's blood pressure, cholesterol level, or white blood cell counts?

Looking for Glacier's vital signs
Researchers and resource managers throughout the National Park Service are taking a variety of approaches to answering these questions. Their efforts are broadly classified as biological inventory and monitoring (I&M) projects. Channel Islands National Park and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park have been pioneers in I&M research (Davis 1989, Graber 1987). Prompted by the development in 1987 of a Servicewide initiative on I&M (see Hermann 1988 and Boyle & Hermann 1988), Glacier and many other parks are now testing hypotheses and methodologies related to I&M (e.g, Allen et al. 1990)(see Information Paper 4).

A critical part of inventory and monitoring in Glacier is a review and synthesis of all past research. A project is underway to locate relevant documents and compile a complete database on all the published and unpublished materials that have been written about the park's resources. The bibliographic information is accompanied by an index of key words reflecting the jurisdictions, drainages, taxa, biotic zones, and topics covered by each study or document. In addition to permitting researchers to readily review existing data, this developing database is an extremely valuable resource for anyone, including interpreters, seeking information on a specific subject or region or planning a research project in or around Glacier. (User's guides for the database have been distributed to all divisions within the park.) An effort is also underway to computerize historic wildlife records, including wildlife report forms, natural history field observation cards, ranger station logbooks, and case/incident reports (S. Gniadek, per. commun.).

To store, analyze, and present much of the existing information on park resources as well as data to be collected through future I&M projects, Glacier has acquired a computerized geographic information system (GIS) (Wherry et al. 1985). GIS is a powerful tool that combines various hardware and software elements to manipulate and compare spatial information in ways that would be extremely laborious or impossible to do by hand. For example, Glacier's GIS has been used to overlay maps of drainages, topography, roads, and vegetation types (derived from LANDSAT photos) in order to identify areas that may be susceptible to invasion by exotic plants. The GIS has also been used to document and analyze the behavior and effects of the Red Bench fire that burned in the North Fork area in 1988 (C. Key, pers. commun.)(see Information Paper 6). GIS is an innovative and rapidly developing technology, the tremendous capabilities of which are only beginning to be tapped. Future uses of Glacier's GIS might include mapping of habitat components for individual species and predictive modeling of landscape changes in response to fire, global warming, or other ecosystem perturbations. The park is working with U.S. Forest Service GIS experts to ensure compatibility of GIS data sets between the two agencies which will make the GIS program even more valuable for research and monitoring at the ecosystem and regional levels within the CCE.

It will probably take many years of collaborative work among NPS units, other government agencies, and universities to come up with broadly applicable, scientifically valid protocols for the inventory and monitoring of biological diversity and ecosystem health in (and outside) of national parks. Once procedures have been developed, monitoring programs will have to be conducted indefinitely into the future. Given the importance of ecosystem health to human survival (see Information Paper 3), however, it does not seem unreasonable to provide park scientists and managers with resources and training commensurate with their task, and to expect as much from them as we expect from the physicians to whom we entrust our own bodies.

Author: Karen J. Schmidt.

References

Abrahamson, D.E. 1989. Global warming: the issue, impacts, responses. Pages 3-34 in D.E. Abrahamson, ed., The challenge of global warming, Island Press, Washington, DC.

Wright, G.R. and P. Hayward. 1985. National parks as research areas, with a focus on Glacier National Park, Montana. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 66(3):354-357.