Manassas National Battlefield Park - Environmental Factors

Manassas National Battlefield Park by National Parks Service

Inventory and Monitoring

Recognizing the need for essential basic data on park ecosystems in order to better manage park natural resources, the National Park Service initiated its Inventory and Monitoring (IandM) Program in the early 1990's. The purpose of the IandM program is to increase scientific research in national parks and detect long-term changes in biological resources. In 1998, funding for the establishment of baseline information and long-term trends in the National Park System resources was obtained by Congress. Thirty-two networks of national parks with significant natural resources service-wide were formed and asked to develop study plans to obtain basic inventories of vertebrates and vascular plants. Manassas National Battlefield Park is within the National Capital Network (NCN). Personnel in the regional office for this network are currently managing the inventories for the NCN parks.

Species inventories in national parks are critically important. Species lists are useful for visitor appreciation of natural resources as well as for conservation of species on a broad geographic scale. Basic biological information, including plant and animal inventories, is lacking for many parks. Inventory data is particularly lacking in smaller parks and for parks created to protect cultural resources. Small national parks established as cultural or historical parks add considerably to the biological diversity of a region. These parks often represent critical natural areas in fragmented landscapes, providing refuges for many species, serving as migration or movement rest stops for wildlife, and serving as living classrooms to the adjacent human communities.

The purpose of this initiative is to complete basic inventories for vascular plants and vertebrates in parks of the National Capital Network in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. In addition to gathering all existing data on species presence and distribution in the eleven parks in the Network, we propose to conduct field investigations for vascular plants, fish, mammals, amphibians/reptiles, and birds in parks that currently have inadequate information for these five taxonomic groups.

Specific objectives of this study are to:

1. Complete the compilation of existing (historic and recent) data for all species of vascular plants and vertebrates in NCN parks from a variety of sources, including museum records of voucher specimens, previous studies, park databases, etc., and enter these data into the appropriate NPS IandM databases.

2. Complete field investigations for vertebrates and vascular plants in NCN parks with the goal of documenting 90% of all species presumed to occur in each park.

3. Conduct inventories for species of special concern, such as threatened and endangered species and other species of special management concern to provide park managers with estimates of relative or absolute abundance and distribution maps in GIS.

4. Provide the baseline information needed to develop general monitoring strategies and designs which are tailored to specific park threats and resource issues and can be implemented by parks once inventories have been completed.