Wind Cave National Park: FFI Database

Northern Great Plains Fire Ecology Program (NGP-FireEP) and Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network (NGPN) plant community monitoring data collected at Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota. The data were collected during summer field seasons by NGP-FireEP based out of Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota from 1996 to present and by NGPN based out of Rapid City, South Dakota from 2011 to present.

Data collected from vegetation transects are either 30 or 50 meter point intercept data to obtain relative and percent cover. Shrub density data (2001-2006) was measured using brush belts along the same transect. In historical plots, nested frequency data (2001-2016) are collected in three frames (0.01, 0.1, and 1m2 nested quadrats) along the transect to determine species diversity. From 2011 to 2015, nested frequency data are collected in four frames (0.01, 0.1, 1, and 10 m2 nested quadrats) and from 2016 to present nested frequency data are collected in one frame (1 m2 quadrats) by the Northern Great Plains Inventory and Monitoring Network at five locations along each transect. Photographs are taken from each end of the transect to document change. Data collected from forest plots include tree inventory to obtain density and basal area, fuel load using Brown's method for inventorying surface fuels and biomass, and seedling density.