Restoring America’s National Parks
•1872: Yellowstone
• 1904: 13,000 2015: 4.1 mill
• National Parks have Endured
from 42nd Congress (1872) to
114th (2015)
• 18th President (Grant) to 44th
•National Park Service in 1916
Yellowstone hot springs
1. Significance of national parks
2. Overview of NPS restoration
3. Examples, including from Southwest
Crater Lake NP
Wupatki NM
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Highest point in N.A. – Mt. McKinley - Denali
Lowest – Badwater Basin, Death Valley
Largest land carnivores – polar bears
700 species of bees in 46 parks since 2010
Great Smoky – 18,545 species
2015 visitation: 307 million people
$30 billion visitor spending, job creation
Education in science, astronomy, art, history, culture
• Documented restoration projects in 59 parks
• 116 individual projects, 152 publications
• Plus, 6 “major” projects (Everglades, Cape Cod, Sequoia fire,
Yellowstone wolves, CO River, Olympic Elwha), with 75 pubs
• Of 116 individual projects, 25% adjacent RC, 8% monitored
decline, 5% literature, 2% remnants, and 60% historical
• Goals: 34% fire mgt, 28% reveg, 9% food webs, 8% hydrology,
others like restore cultural ecosystems
• 63 different tmts – e.g., prescribed fire, backfilling canals,
outplanting, mulching, creating check dams to harvest runoff,
soil roughening, reintroducing animals, mowing, tree thinning
Project examples
Cowpens NB, SC
• Sequoia NP
• Everglades
• Indiana Dunes NL
Indiana Dunes NL
Restoring open
ecosystems
Flowering Plants
• 352,000 species
• 88% pollinated
• 66 bees Everglades
• 204 Indiana Dunes
Restoring
recreation sites:
Apostle Islands NS
Kahului Airport, Maui
• Intercepted 279 insect species
Port Information Network Database
• 725,000 interceptions at 42 airports,
25 maritime ports, 33 border sites
from 1984 to 2000
Sleeping Bear Dunes Natl Lakeshore (MI)
90% projects
reduce focal nonnative
Unsuccessful
Successful
Sleeping Bear Dunes Natl Lakeshore (MI)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:
87,000 total dams
8,000 ‘large’ dams
LP Chiquoine
0.4 meter (1.3 ft)
rise since 1934
Glen Canyon NRA, UT-AZ
• 3 sites where
Northshore Road rerouted
• Gypsum, calcium
carbonate soils
• 16 cm (6 inches)
average rainfall, near
average during study
• Mixed shrub –
saltbush, others
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Nested within overall project – salvaging plants, topsoil
Post-salvage plant care
Topsoil (upper 20 cm)/no topsoil
Irrigation – DRiWATER, by hand
23 species
• Topsoil salvage doubled survival (25% without, 56% with)
• Planting on topsoil was nearly equivalent to irrigating
(35% without, 58% with)
Survival (%)
• Some species responded to both water types
80
• Others preferred one type
60
40
20
0
Water
No water
2,105 original plants salvaged
• 1,017 (48%) of these survived salvage one year storage
• 143 plants gained via recruitment in pots in nursery
• 7 plants damaged or lost during processes
Thus, 1,153 plants available for field planting
• Of these, 571 (50%) still alive after 27 mo in field
Plants at restoration sites constituted 27% of original pool
• 571 of 2,105 plants (27%)
• Salvage survivors, new recruits, and subsequent field
survival
Cacti (4 spp) survived both salvage and field planting
• Salvage: 122 of 123 plants (99%)
• Field: 113 of 122 plants (99%)
Stephanomeria
• Barrel cactus, Opuntia spp.
– wirelettuce
NRCS PLANTS
Forbs struggled a bit more
• 2 of 8 spp exhibited > 25% total survival
• Sphaeralcea and Stephanomeria performed well
Shrubs generally performed well
• 6 of 10 spp had > 25% total survival
• Saltbush spp., bursage, creosote bush, and brittlebush
Chiquoine, L. P., S. R. Abella, & M. A. Bowker. 2016. Rapidly restoring
biological soil crusts and ecosystem functions in a severely disturbed
desert ecosystem. Ecological Applications, in press.
Additional tool for restoration – we used salvaged
salvaged biocrust material
1985
2014
Las Vegas bearpoppy
Lake Mead NRA
Sharon Altman prepared many
of the figures
Many individuals provided
additional information about
their research and projects; L.
Chiquoine, J. Jaeger, A. Newton,
others reviewed drafts
Redwood NP