Part I: Protocol for Inventory
and Monitoring of Threatened
and Endangered Plant Species

by
Charles D. Bonham(1), Stephen G. Bousquin(1) and David Tazik(2)

(1)Colorado State University Department of Rangeland Ecosystem Science
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1478; (2)US Army Corps of Engineers, Waterways Experiment Station, 3909 Halls Ferry Rd., Vicksburg, MS 39180-6133

PART I TABLE OF CONTENTS

ON THIS PAGE
Section I: Executive Summary of the Preliminary Protocol
Section II: Introduction
Section III: The Purpose of Survey, Inventory and Monitoring
Part I Tables and Figures: Table 1; Figure 1; Figure 2
NEXT PAGE
Section IV: The Protocol
Section V: Final Notes: The Endpoint of a TES Study
References Cited: Part I; Part II
PART II: Sections I-IV; Sections V-VI

Section I. Executive Summary of the Preliminary Protocol

A. Protocol for the Preliminary Survey

Collection of Information About Potential TES Occurrence
Identify TES that occur or may occur on the installation or management area.
Gather species and identification information for potentially occurring TES from the literature and from experts. Use existing species information to identify special requirements, associations, or sensitivities of TES and to refine installation habitat information.

Collection of Existing Habitat and Land-Use Information About the Area
Use available habitat information to delineate areas of possible habitat for TES plants than may occur on the installation or management area.
Review past, current, and projected human disturbance patterns and other activities.
Compile a list of possibly occurring species which searches will be made.

Prediction of TES Occurrence
Various predictive methods can be used to facilitate location of TES populations. Predictions should be verified by field surveys.

B. Protocol for the Field Survey

Objectives
Specify the objectives for the field survey.

Field Survey Design, Quality Assurance and Quality Control, and Logistics
Design survey procedures, specify QA/QC criteria, develop a survey budget, specify coordinating personnel, obtain equipment, and recruit qualified field personnel for the survey.

Conducting the Field Survey
Conduct the field searches at appropriate seasons and in appropriate habitats, and document TES occurrences.

Reporting
Report on the results of the field survey.

C. Inventory Protocol

Objectives
Specify the objectives of the inventory.

Documentation of TES Occurrences
Compile an inventory of TES documented to occur on the installation or management area. Document searches for expected species that are not found.

Populations of Special Concern and Preliminary Management Recommendations
Identify populations of special or immediate concern because of observed or qualitative indications of low densities, poor reproduction, or poor survival. Compare areas and habitats of concern with current and planned land uses. In consultation with species experts, make interim recommendations regarding possible conflicts between land management/land use activities and the security of documented TES populations.

Prioritization of Species Concerns and Investment Strategy
Prioritize species concerns for allocation of research among TES occurring on the installation or management area and/or future monitoring resources.

Inventory Design, Quality Assurance and Quality Control, and Logistics
Design population and habitat data collection procedures, specify QA/QC criteria, develop a budget, specify coordinating personnel, requisition equipment, and recruit qualified field personnel for inventory data collection.

Data Collection
Collect data on relevant habitat, environmental, and vegetation characteristics for all or a representative sample of documented populations of each TES.
Collect population data such as density by size class or life stage, at selected levels of detail, on all or a representative sample of populations and during appropriate seasons.

Data Analysis
Analyze data.

Reporting
Report on field work, data analysis, results, predictions, and conclusions.

D. Monitoring Protocol

Objectives
Specify the objectives of the monitoring project.

Monitoring Design, Quality Assurance and Quality Control, and Logistics
Design and schedule population and habitat monitoring procedures, specify QA/QC criteria, specify coordinating personnel, develop a budget, allocate funds, requisition equipment, and recruit qualified field personnel for data collection.

Initiation of the Monitoring Project
Initiate and conduct the monitoring and analysis schedule for known populations to determine the current and projected status and trend of TES populations.

Data Analysis
Analyze monitoring results periodically for population changes possibly caused by military and other land-uses. Continue some level of monitoring of populations and habitat as a feedback mechanism for timely adaptive management response to changes in population status and trend.

Reporting and Publication
Report on and publish results of periodic monitoring efforts and make management recommendations.

E. Protocol for Additional Research and Population and Habitat Manipulation

Long-term Monitoring and Additional Research
Continue monitoring over the long term, possibly on a revised schedule based on emerging information. Design and implement further research, if necessary, to determine the causes of declines in both extant TES plant populations and in potential habitat considered to be of possible future value.

Population and Habitat Intervention
For cases where populations or habitat of TES of particular concern have declined, consider manipulative intervention techniques.

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Section II. Introduction

A protocol is a set of procedures designed to ensure that useful information is obtained in data acquisition, monitoring, or other scientific research activities. The protocol presented here is intended to provide an internally consistent sequence of research stages to guide natural resource (NR) personnel in formulation of relevant and productive questions that involve threatened and endangered plant species (hereafter referred to as TES) that occur on public lands. The design and implementation of surveys, inventories, monitoring projects, and other research appropriate to answering these questions, are also a part of this process.

The protocol does not contain a detailed or standardized methodology to obtain specific information on TES or their habitats. It is not the intent of the protocol to rigidly define methods, but to suggest the kinds of basic information that are useful in assessment and management of TES plant populations, some alternative established ways to obtain this information, and possible directions that research may take once useful information is being generated. The protocol is intended to provide logical and scientifically valid approaches to the survey, inventory and monitoring of TES, but also to allow the manager choices of methodology used.

Concerns that species and their habitats may be adversely affected by human activities have resulted in federal legislation, including the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) (16 U.S.C. 1600-1614), as amended. ESA was enacted to provide for protection of endangered plant and animal species and their habitats. ESA's provisions include the federal listing of such species as threatened or endangered, establishment of standards for their treatment, and specification of mandated actions towards recovery of listed species. Under ESA Section 7, the listing agency (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for plants) must be consulted as to possible presence of TES in an area of proposed habitat alteration. If USFWS advises that TES may be present, the agency proposing such activities must conduct a biological assessment, which normally takes the form of a survey of the area for listed species. Similar assessments are also required prior to federally-funded habitat alterations under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) (14 U.S.C. 4321-4347).

Within the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Army Regulation (AR) 200-03, Chapter 11, specifies actions to be taken by installations for management and conservation of TES that are found in the biological assessment process. It requires that Army installations "1) conduct a comprehensive survey of all potential habitat on the installation for listed, proposed, and candidate species, 2) develop conservation plans in consultation with the listing service, 3) develop a comprehensive long-term Endangered Species Management Plan (ESMP) for each listed and proposed species and critical habitat, 4) monitor compliance and effectiveness of the ESMP, and 5) screen all installation plans for possible impacts on TES" (Teller 1993). Army policy is to assume leadership in TES protection on lands in its charge, while providing for the Army's primary role of national defense (Tazik and Martin 1994).

To date, there exists no structured approach for the survey, inventory, and subsequent monitoring of TES on public lands. However, methodological approaches for plant TES assessment and conservation for compliance with ESA and other agency-specific regulations and policies have been developed for use on some state and federal lands. Methods are often designed for individual plant species and are intended for localized use. A survey of agencies (Bonham et al. 1995a, an unpublished report integrated as Part II) unpublished report showed that TES require approaches tailored for each species, and often for populations within a particular species. This localized approach is necessary because each species has particular requirements and sensitivities, and because individual populations may have problems associated with local conditions. Changes in land-use practices can affect different species in different ways, and the effect of land-use on TES populations depends on various environmental factors.

Field studies are expensive and time-consuming. Limited funds should be distributed among efforts for assessing TES according to some method of prioritizing research needs. Prioritization provides for implementation of an investment strategy, by which funds and other resources can be allocated as efficiently and effectively as possible. Prioritization, in turn, requires specific information that identifies species that are declining and species that are most likely to be negatively impacted by current land-use practices. Customized monitoring and other research plans can then be developed according to the data requirements of individual species and populations, and according to assigned priorities, rather than according to a rigid or pre-established methodology.

Although TES studies are usually specific to individual species and populations, a number of studies relating to general methodology for plant TES research have been published. In particular, Natural Areas Journal has published TES-related papers concerning methodologies, critiques of methodology, survey approaches, and case studies. Other sources of methodological guidance include less specialized journals in the fields of ecology, botany, and vegetation science. Recovery plans (published by USFWS) and conservation strategies (usually published by agencies) are also available.

The basic questions that should be addressed for effective TES management and conservation in compliance with federal law and agency regulations and policy, and for development of further TES research, are the focus of this Protocol (see Section III). These questions relate to verification of the existence of listed species on military installations or other administrative management areas, the geographical distribution of these TES, the nature of the habitats in which TES populations are found, assessment of the status and prospects for future persistence of these populations, and evaluation of possible conflicts between land uses and TES habitat requirements.

The protocol presents a framework of activities or phases, within which specific methods may be developed to address individual needs of TES. The protocol is thus intended as a guide for the use of surveys, inventories, and monitoring programs to answer important questions about TES. The Part II document incorporates information obtained from a review of the literature of habitat analysis for animal and plant species, and established measurement procedures in plant conservation and the vegetation sciences (e.g., Greig-Smith 1983, Bonham 1989, Kent and Coker 1992). Some generalized approaches to TES research and assessments of their utility for various stages of TES studies are presented in Table 1. Because of ongoing changes in regulations and legislation, however, NR managers should consult with USFWS personnel to determine how the activities described in this protocol relate to federal requirements.

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Section III. THE PURPOSE OF SURVEY, INVENTORY AND MONITORING

Survey, inventory, and monitoring are viewed in this Protocol as pragmatic and objective-driven procedures that can provide information on existing populations of TES species and their habitats. The phases of TES study presented are intended primarily to provide scientific information to guide land-use management, with the broad objectives of minimizing, avoiding, or mitigating harm to TES.

The sequence of stages presented allows information of increasing quality to be obtained for the description of TES and associated habitat characteristics. TES management strategies may be revised as data are obtained from additional inventories and monitoring. This process is called adaptive management, which maximizes the integrative value of monitoring and management strategies by maintaining a feedback loop of information among these activities. Information obtained from surveys, inventories, and monitoring can be analyzed in various ways, and can be used in predictive population- or habitat-based models. The process thus results in more effective management of TES populations by use of the most current information available. The cycle of feedback that characterizes adaptive management is illustrated in Figure 1.

A. Questions for TES Management

Specific questions may be identified to provide important baseline information necessary to appropriately guide TES management. These questions are:
a) Do populations of TES occur on the agency's land, and if so, where? The function of surveys is to determine the occurrence and distribution of TES populations.
b) What are the important factors affecting TES populations? Inventories provide data on populations and their habitats. Variables estimated may include species abundance and demographic measurements (age class distribution), as well as habitat characterizations.
This information is useful to delineate potential areas for field searches, areas of potential habitat for possible protection or population reintroduction, and to provide baseline information for habitat manipulation.
c) What is the status of populations on the installation or public land area, and what are their prospects for the future? Inventory provides information on status at a point in time, while monitoring of the status trend (e.g., increasing, declining, or stable) of extant populations provides direct measurement of populations over time. Monitoring consists of recursive inventories; however, attributes measured should focus on detecting ecologically significant changes (Brady et al. 1995). Monitoring can facilitate assessment of management practices and help establish priorities among species of concern.
d) How and why do population trends change over time, and how are TES populations affected by land use practices? Explanations of the causes of changes in populations, especially negative trends, should improve assessment of land-use practices that affect TES.
e) How can land-use conflicts involving TES habitat be resolved so that populations are not negatively impacted by human activity, as required by the Endangered Species Act? Properly designed research can frequently culminate in a set of informed management recommendations for the TES in question.

Addressing the above five questions leads to a series of activities that should provide information for development of TES management strategies. These actions form the protocol (Fig. 2). Section IV contains an expanded discussion of the protocol.

B. The Organization of the Protocol

The protocol is arranged into five sections addressing phases of inquiry. These phases, treated as individual protocols, are: Preliminary survey, field survey, inventory, monitoring, and additional research and population/habitat manipulation. The phases are interconnected and are intended to be designed and considered simultaneously. The organizational scheme of the protocol is thus not meant to imply that these phases are necessarily independent of one another, although the information provided by each phase does represent independently usable information.

Each phase of a TES study successively provides more precise, and often more accurate, information about populations. Specifically, the preliminary survey provides extant and hypothetical information about the occurrence of TES, the field survey verifies this information, the inventory provides "one-time" data on located populations and their habitats, the monitoring phase detects population change over time and these data may be used to predict population trends, and the additional research and population/habitat manipulation, if implemented, covers further problems that may need to be addressed for proper management of TES.

An efficient approach to the design of data collection procedures for the survey or inventory phases will consider the data requirements for a monitoring project. This is because measurements taken at early phases can be used as the basis for monitoring activities.
Most phases of TES study will include the basic components and considerations that must be addressed in any form of field research, including study design, quality assurance/quality control logistics, personnel requirements, data acquisition, data analysis, and reporting of results. In most cases, these topics are not discussed extensively in each section of the protocol; instead, the reader is referred to the appropriate section where important phase-specific aspects of topics are addressed. Discussions of research design are primarily located in the section on monitoring (Section IV.D).

Protocol topics are presented with the assumption that the NR manager has a basic knowledge of statistics, research design, ecology, and general research protocol. The reader is often referred to specific technical sources of information in the literature which provide case studies and details of particular research and sampling methods.
Solicitation of input from experts in particular disciplines is often suggested to assure the quality of project design and implementation. In the section on monitoring, the use of specialists with appropriate local and methodological expertise is suggested to supplement ESA-required consultation with USFWS. Consultations may often be achieved at little cost by utilizing experts employed by Federal agencies.

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