An Ecological Study of the Prairie and Sedge Meadow Communities of Richardson Wildlife Foundation

ID: 8259; Issue date not indicated on report.INHS Technical Report prepared for Terry Moyer, Richardson Wildlife Foundatio

Crowded: Population Pressures in San Francisco Bay Area National Park Service Properties

This paper hopes to analyze the intersection between diversity and numbers of visitors and landscape preservation in the National Park Service. Current scholarship addresses either diversity in the Park System or carrying capacity and human population pressures. However, both are critical issues facing the National Park Service in the 21st century, and looking at the issues in isolation means missing a key interaction and potentially working to solve one problem that in turn amplifies another. Here, diversity of park-goers and preservation priorities will be addressed together, each as part of the other. Pinnacles National Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Muir Woods National Monument each face human population pressures, yet each park has unique issues that illuminate the larger struggles within in NPS to ensure its mission to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations is still being met 100 years after conception

Parthenocissus quinquefolia (L.) Planch.

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/herbarium_specimens_byname/19436/thumbnail.jp

Morus alba var. alba

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/herbarium_specimens_byname/19850/thumbnail.jp

Ampelopsis cordata Michx.

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/herbarium_specimens_byname/19451/thumbnail.jp

Ampelopsis cordata Michx.

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/herbarium_specimens_byname/19451/thumbnail.jp

Morus alba L.

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/herbarium_specimens_byname/19816/thumbnail.jp

Vegetation and Flora of the Sand Deposits of the Mississippi River Valley in Northwestern Illinois

This study was undertaken to determine vascular plant species composition, vegetation structure, and floristic quality of the major plant communities in the windblown sand deposits of northwestern Illinois during the growing seasons of 2002 through 2005. The major plant communities of the Ayers Sand Prairie Nature Preserve in Carroll County, Big River State Forest in Henderson County, Lost Mound Unit of the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife and Fish Refuge in Carroll and Jo Daviess counties, and the Thomson-Fulton Sand Prairie Nature Preserve located in Whiteside County were examined and the importance values determined for the plant species present. Located on broad terraces of the Mississippi River, these nature preserves and natural areas are remnants of a larger grassland/savanna/forest complex that contained extensive marsh; wet, mesic, and dry sand prairie; sand savanna; and sand forest communities. Most of the sand deposits are now cultivated and the original vegetation is found only in protected remnants, some of which are relatively large. The mature dry sand prairies were dominated by Schizachyrium scoparium; other important species were Opuntia macrorhiza, Dichanthelium villosissimum, Ambrosia psilostachya, and Tephrosia virginiana. Other assemblages of prairie and exotic species were encountered in successional sand prairie communities. Generally, the mature prairie communities in these preserves and natural areas had 35 or more species present in the study plots. Savanna and closed canopy forest communities were also examined. The dry sand savannas were dominated by Quercus velutina and Q. marilandica, dry sand forests were dominated by Q. velutina, and dry-mesic sand forests were dominated by Q. alba and Q. velutina.Illinois Department of Natural Resources; Illinois Nature Preserves Commissionpublished or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe