Vegetation Classification and Mapping of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail

archived

This Funding Announcement is not a request for applications. This announcement is to provide public notice of the National Park Service's intention to fund the following project activities without full and open competition: Task Agreement #P11AT00325 (R4531110809)to NatureServe with an anticipated project completion date of 9-30-2014; Authorities-Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, Title III Section 301, PL 110-229; Cooperative Agreements 16 USC Section 1(g); OVERVIEW-The National Park Service�s (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring Program (I&M) was established by the National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998, PL 105-391, 16 USC 5934. This law authorizes and directs the Secretary of the Interior to undertake a program of inventory and monitoring of NPS resources to establish baseline information and to provide information on the long-term trends in the condition of NPS resources. Congress also directed the NPS to develop the I&M in cooperation with other Federal monitoring and information efforts to ensure a cost-effective approach. NatureServe works throughout the United States in close collaboration with state natural heritage programs and a number of other state and federal agencies and universities to collect, manage, analyze and provide scientific information and tools need to guide effective conservation action. The scientific databases and other tools developed by NatureServe are of significant benefit to NPS because they give NPS access to research capacity, expertise, ecological analyses, planning methods and tools, and data that would otherwise take NPS years and millions of dollars to develop on their own. The depth of on-the ground knowledge represented by the NatureServe staff and network, as well as its capacity of provide regional and nationally consistent analyses, is unique. The first Cooperative Agreement between the NPS Southeast Regional Inventory and Monitoring program and NatureServe was initiated in 2001, providing an instrument to initiate multiple collaborative projects including vertebrate and vascular plant surveys, vegetation classification, vegetation monitoring, and vegetation map accuracy assessments. This agreement will allow the continuation of this assistance. Project work is a continuation of an activity presently being funded, and for which competition would have a significant adverse effect on the continuity or completion of the activity. This is Phase 7 of a vegetation community classification project that began in 2004 as a cooperative effort between the NPS and NatureServe. NatureServe assisted in initial efforts to design, plan, and implement an efficient cost-effective approach to collecting and analyzing floristic data and classifying and describing the vegetation communities along the entire length of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Classifications are almost complete for the Southern Blue Ridge ecosystem, and work is underway with classifying the Central Appalachian communities and analyzing data from the Lower New England ecosystem. This portion of the overall project will complete classifications and descriptions of the Lower New England ecosystem and collect floristic data in the Northern Appalachian ecosystem for future use in classifying and describing those communities;NATURESERVE INVOLVEMENT will include 1) Development of an approach that will allow collection of all plot and observation point data necessary to classify the vegetation of the park, 2) Providing coordination for all parties in the project in order to promote communication with one another at all levels, 3) Management of all new and legacy quantitative, qualitative and spatial data associated with project deliverables, and 4) Providing support for aerial orthophotography acquisition, photo interpretation and vegetation map production; NPS INVOLVEMENT includes 1) NPS will assign a Denver based plant ecologist to the project; 2. Collaborate on decision making regarding the proper level of classification; 3. Gathering field plot data, analyze field data, interpret floristic results; 4. Review and provide edits to descriptions of plant communities. 5. Provide necessary supplies and equipment. UNIQUE QUALIFICATIONS: The applicant is uniquely qualified to perform this activity because of its unique nationwide scope of mission, depth of knowledge of the development of the U.S. National Vegetation Classification Standard (USNVC), and experience implementing the USNVC on both public and non-public landscapes in both the U.S. and other countries around the globe. NatureServe began and continues to develop the systematic taxonomy of plant communities and vegetation hierarchy that has become the national standard for the U.S., including the standard of the NPS Vegetation Mapping Program, under which this project is being implemented and funded. NatureServe is the national leader in plant community classification and techniques and in rare species biodiversity preservation. NatureServe coordinates the State Natural Heritage Programs, and serves as the nationwide integrator and synthesizer of floristic data used for systematic community taxonomy.

High