Inventory and Monitoring at Mammoth Cave National Park

Bat crew preparing to work at Mammoth Cave National Park.

NPS Photo

Located in south-central Kentucky, Mammoth Cave National Park is the largest unit of the Cumberland Piedmont Network with 53,000 acres of forested hills, two rivers, and the longest recorded cave system in the world. The cave ecosystem is considered one of the world's most diverse, and the park also contains tremendous above-ground diversity. Rivers, bluffs, sinkholes, cave entrances, and ridgetops all are habitats with many distinct plant and animal communities.

The Cumberland Piedmont Network I&M program has provided this park with a vegetation community classification and map, an upland-wetland inventory, and updated vascular plant and vertebrate species lists. During the vegetation community classification work, over 42 distinct associations were documented and mapped, including rare limestone glades and post oak barrens.

The network monitoring program at this park includes nine vital signs that involve repeated visits to established sites, following procedures established by each monitoring protocol. These nine vital signs include five cave vital signs (aquatic biota, bats, crickets, meteorology, woodrats), forest vegetation communities, invasive species early detection, ozone/foliar injury, and water quality. Water quality monitoring (ongoing in this park for over a decade prior to establishment of the network), continued in 2004 through network monitoring protocols, which followed the schedule for two years "on", five years "off", at 13 sites. Forest monitoring began in 2011–2012 with the establishment of 16 long-term monitoring plots, and continues on a yearly schedule with site visits in September. This park has a continuous ozone monitor and foliar injury is assessed on-site every year, beginning in 2008. The Invasive Species Early Detection protocol was completed in 2012 and will be used by field crews to monitor for priority exotics during their scheduled field work. Cave bat monitoring began in 2016 and continues annually for summer counts and every other year for winter counts. Cave cricket monitoring began in 2018 and continues annually for summer and winter counts. The cave aquatic biota monitoring protocol was completed in 2018.

Park managers are using inventory and monitoring data to create resource stewardship strategies for achieving desired future conditions. For example, a critically important issue for this park is cave bat monitoring. White-nose Syndrome is a devastating fungal disease killing millions of bats across the United States. This disease was documented for the first time at this park in 2013, following monitoring visits to several of the park caves. This long-term dataset is extremely important in understanding impacts to this vital cave resource.

Park managers are using inventory and monitoring data to create resource stewardship strategies for achieving desired future conditions. The links to inventory and monitoring reports are provided on this page.

For more Information contact:

Steve Thomas, Network Program Manager, CUPN offices at Mammoth Cave NP

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Species Attribute Definitions

Definitions

Occurrence

Occurrence values are defined below. One or more Occurrence Tags may be associated with each Occurrence value.

Present: Species occurs in park; current, reliable evidence available.

Probably Present: High confidence species occurs in park but current, verified evidence needed.

Unconfirmed: Species is attributed to park but evidence is weak or absent.

Not In Park: Species is not known to occur in park.

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Occurrence Tags

Adjacent: Species is known to occur in areas near to or contiguous with park boundaries.

False Report: Species was reported to occur within the park, but current evidence indicates the report was based on misidentification, a taxonomic concept no longer accepted, or other similar problem of error or interpretation.

Historical: Species' historical occurrence in park is documented. Assigned based on judgment as opposed to determination based on age of the most recent evidence.

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Abundance

Abundant:

• Animals: May be seen daily, in suitable habitat and season, and counted in relatively large numbers.
• Plants: Large number of individuals; wide ecological amplitude or occurring in habitats covering a large portion of the park.

Common:

• Animals: May be seen daily, in suitable habitat and season, but not in large numbers.
• Plants: Large numbers of individuals predictably occurring in commonly encountered habitats but not those covering a large portion of the park.

Uncommon:

• Animals: Likely to be seen monthly in appropriate habitat and season. May be locally common.
• Plants: Few to moderate numbers of individuals; occurring either sporadically in commonly encountered habitats or in uncommon habitats.

Rare:

• Animals: Present, but usually seen only a few times each year.
• Plants: Few individuals, usually restricted to small areas of rare habitat.

Occasional:

• Animals: Occurs in the park at least once every few years, varying in numbers, but not necessarily every year.
• Plants: Abundance variable from year to year (e.g., desert plants).

Unknown: Abundance unknown

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Nativeness

Native: Species naturally occurs in park or region.

Non-native: Species occurs on park lands as a result of deliberate or accidental human activities.

Unknown: Nativeness status is unknown or ambiguous.

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List Differences

The Checklist contains only those species that are designated as "present" or "probably present" in the park.

The Full List includes all the checklist species in addition to species that are unconfirmed, historically detected, or incorrectly reported as being found in the park. The full list also contains species that are "in review" because their status in the park hasn't been fully determined. Additional details about the status of each species is included in the full list.

The checklist will almost always contain fewer species than the full list.

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Mammoth Cave National Park

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Species attribute definitions

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A Virtual Tour of Mammoth Cave Ecosystems

Please enjoy this ESRI Story Map tour through the Mammoth Cave ecosystems. This video is best viewed full-screen. Click the "View full screen" link below.