The Ibex dune field of Death Valley National Park, California: Characterization and assessment for Use as a Martian analog

Vegetation inventory and mapping is a process to document the composition, distribution and abundance of vegetation types across the landscape. The National Park Service’s (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) program has determined vegetation inventory and mapping to be an important resource for parks; it is one of 12 baseline inventories of natural resources to be completed for all 270 national parks within the NPS I&M program. The Mojave Desert Network Inventory & Monitoring (MOJN I&M) began its process of vegetation inventory in 2009 for four park units as follows: Lake Mead National Recreation Area (LAKE), Mojave National Preserve (MOJA), Castle Mountains National Monument (CAMO), and Death Valley National Park (DEVA). Mapping is a multi-step and multi-year process involving skills and interactions of several parties, including NPS, with a field ecology team, a classification team, and a mapping team. This process allows for compiling existing vegetation data, collecting new data to fill in gaps, and analyzing the data to develop a classification that then informs the mapping. The final products of this process include a vegetation classification, ecological descriptions and field keys of the vegetation types, and geospatial vegetation maps based on the classification. In this report, we present the narrative and results of the sampling and classification effort. In three other associated reports (Evens et al. 2020a, 2020b, 2020c) are the ecological descriptions and field keys. The resulting products of the vegetation mapping efforts are, or will be, presented in separate reports: mapping at LAKE was completed in 2016, mapping at MOJA and CAMO will be completed in 2020, and mapping at DEVA will occur in 2021. The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and NatureServe, the classification team, have completed the vegetation classification for these four park units, with field keys and descriptions of the vegetation types developed at the alliance level per the U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC). We have compiled approximately 9,000 existing and new vegetation data records into digital databases in Microsoft Access. The resulting classification and descriptions include approximately 105 alliances and landform types, and over 240 associations. CNPS also has assisted the mapping teams during map reconnaissance visits, follow-up on interpreting vegetation patterns, and general support for the geospatial vegetation maps being produced. A variety of alliances and associations occur in the four park units. Per park, the classification represents approximately 50 alliances at LAKE, 65 at MOJA and CAMO, and 85 at DEVA. Several riparian alliances or associations that are somewhat rare (ranked globally as G3) include shrublands of Pluchea sericea, meadow associations with Distichlis spicata and Juncus cooperi, and woodland associations of Salix laevigata and Prosopis pubescens along playas, streams, and springs. Other rare to somewhat rare types (G2 to G3) include shrubland stands with Eriogonum heermannii, Buddleja utahensis, Mortonia utahensis, and Salvia funerea on rocky calcareous slopes that occur sporadically in LAKE to MOJA and DEVA. Types that are globally rare (G1) include the associations of Swallenia alexandrae on sand dunes and Hecastocleis shockleyi on rocky calcareous slopes in DEVA. Two USNVC vegetation groups hold the highest number of alliances: 1) Warm Semi-Desert Shrub & Herb Dry Wash & Colluvial Slope Group (G541) has nine alliances, and 2) Mojave Mid-Elevation Mixed Desert Scrub Group (G296) has thirteen alliances. These two groups contribute significantly to the diversity of vegetation along alluvial washes and mid-elevation transition zones.

This study presents a comprehensive vegetation mapping inventory project undertaken in Death Valley National Park (DEVA) within the National Park Service?s Mojave Desert Network (MOJN). Spanning 3.4 million acres across California and Nevada, DEVA is the largest national park in the contiguous United States. Renowned for its harsh environment?characterized by intense heat, aridity, and low elevation?DEVA encompasses a variety of landscapes, including playas, alluvial fans, sand dunes, and mountain ranges. Despite its desolate appearance, the park harbors a diverse array of vegetation, with plant communities adapted to the park?s varying elevation, moisture, salinity, and substrate conditions. The project, which began in 2011, was initiated by the National Park Service?s (NPS) Vegetation Mapping Inventory (VMI), aimed to document and classify the plant communities within DEVA. The ten-year project, divided into six phases, began with a thorough review of legacy data and a summary of plant communities. In collaboration with the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), field data were collected across the park, including 111 classification plots and 518 observation points. This data, along with 1,242 samples from previous studies, were entered into the NPS VMI-specific PLOTS database. The CNPS analyzed the collected data to classify 85 plant alliances according to the revised US National Vegetation Classification (rUSNVC) standard, leading to the identification of 186 plant associations within DEVA. Cogan Technology, Inc., then developed a digital vegetation map layer covering the entire park, using a combination of manual and automated mapping techniques. This map was based on imagery from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) and field data, resulting in the delineation of 90 map units (74 vegetated and 16 land-use/land-cover units). The map?s overall thematic accuracy was assessed at 82%, with a Kappa value of 89%. The final products, including the spatial geodatabase, digital vegetation map layer, field photos, metadata, classification report, and a field key to the vegetation alliances, were delivered to the NPS VMI. These resources provide a comprehensive overview of DEVA?s vegetation and support ongoing conservation and management efforts within this unique and challenging landscape.

The Timbisha Shoshone and the National Park Idea: Building toward Accommodation and Acknowledgment at Death Valley National Park, 1933–2000 Mark Miller In the early 1970s, tourists flocked to the lavish Furnace Creek Inn in the heart of Death Valley National Monument. With its swimming pools, palm-shaded gardens, and fine dining, the hotel seemed every bit the American version of an Arabian oasis. At the resort, visitors could enjoy the austere desert beauty of Death Valley without experiencing true discomfort or unpleasant encounters with the unforgiving landscape. Patrons of the inn, located near the monument headquarters at Furnace Creek, California, commanded a sweeping view of the snowcapped Panamint Range and white salt flats of the valley floor, a scene framing gray and beige uplands to the west. If visitors strained their eyes, they also could see a small collection of adobe casitas and ramshackle trailers on the southwest edge of the park complex. Although not marked on tourist maps, the hamlet was “Indian Village,” home to the Timbisha Shoshone, the original inhabitants of Death Valley. At the time, the Shoshone enclave was an anomaly in the National Park System; federal officials had removed other native groups from western parks. As such, the village was at the center of a brewing conflict between the National Park Service (NPS) and the Shoshone over the very existence of the enclave, with each party holding decidedly different views of native presence on federal parklands. As the 1970s progressed, Indian Village was important to debates over the proper place of native groups in national parks, what constituted wilderness and “natural” land uses, and conceptions of stewardship, resource management, and preservation. In 2000, the Death Valley conflict ended in an unprecedented way—with the NPS recognizing the Shoshone’s traditional land uses, and more importantly, Mark Miller is assistant professor in the Department of History at Southern Utah University, in Cedar City. Journal of the Southwest 50, 4 (Winter 2008) : 415–446 416 ✜ Journal of the Southwest acknowledging their right to live within the park itself. For the first time in its long history, the NPS agreed to create an Indian reservation within the boundaries of a national park. The Shoshone conflict with the NPS represents a significant chapter in the evolution of public policy toward Native American land uses within national parks. Standard works on the nation’s parks by Alfred Runte and Roderick Nash detail how the nineteenth-century “national park idea” coalesced around the goal of preserving uninhabited, seemingly pristine wilderness. Important recent studies by Mark David Spence, Philip Burnham, Robert H. Keller, and Michael F. Turek, show that the Park Service’s secret history was that these seemingly untouched environments were predicated upon Indian removal beforehand and exclusion afterward. As historian Spence concludes, when officials evicted the last Miwok tribesman from Yosemite Valley in 1969, it brought the park in line with the “standards of the national park idea.”1 Although path-breaking works on Indians and parks contain brief discussions of the Timbisha Shoshone, the following pages provide a fuller picture of the anomalous state of affairs at Death Valley National Park, a NPS unit that, unlike nearby Yosemite, never conformed to the national park idea. Whereas existing scholarship on Indian communities and the NPS largely focuses upon reservation tribes, their removal, and their generally fruitless battles to regain lands held by the NPS, the Shoshone case reveals a non-reservation, unrecognized tribe that remained on its aboriginal lands and, through decades of struggle, ultimately regained portions of its homeland. Beyond the specifics of local history, this article expands existing scholarship by revealing a growing trend in Native American–Park Service relations. As this story demonstrates, federal officials more and more are acknowledging that indigenous land-use practices are not inherently detrimental to park landscapes and may actually provide benefits to ecosystems that have been affected by human management for thousands of years. Ethnobotanists M. Kat Anderson and David E. Ruppert argue that traditional Native American management techniques should be utilized in restoring and sustainably managing environments once perceived as pristine.2 In this vein the Timbisha example seems to confirm that the NPS is moving toward a model envisioned...

Author(s): Gonzalez, Patrick | Abstract: Human-caused climate change has exposed the US national park area to more severe increases in heat and aridity than the country as a whole and caused widespread impacts on ecosystems and resources. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from cars, power plants, and other human sources would reduce future risks. Since 1895, annual average temperature of the area of the 419 national parks has increased at a rate of 1.0 ± 0.2oC (1.8 ± 0.4oF) per century, double the rate of the US as a whole, while precipitation has declined significantly on 12% of national park area, compared with 3% of the US. This occurs because extensive areas of national parks are located in extreme environments. Scientific research in national parks has detected numerous changes that analyses have attributed primarily to human-caused climate change. These include a doubling of the area burned by wildfire across the western US, including Yosemite National Park, melting of glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park, a doubling of tree mortality across the western US, including Sequoia National Park, a loss of bird species from Death Valley National Park, a shift of trees onto tundra in Noatak National Preserve, sea level rise of 42 cm (17 in.) near the Statue of Liberty National Monument, and other impacts. Without emissions reductions, climate change could increase temperatures across the national parks, up to 9oC (16oF) by 2100 in parks in Alaska. This could melt all glaciers from Glacier National Park, raise sea level enough to inundate half of Everglades National Park, dissolve coral reefs in Virgin Islands National Park through ocean acidification, and damage many other natural and cultural resources. Adaptation measures, including conservation of refugia in Joshua Tree National Park and raising heat-resistant local corals in Biscayne National Park, can strengthen ecosystem integrity. Yet, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is the only solution that prevents the pollution that causes climate change. Energy conservation and efficiency improvements, renewable energy, public transit, and other actions could lower projected heating by two-thirds, reducing risks to our national parks.

Participation of the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe in Land and Water Resource Management Decisions in Death Valley National Park, California and Nevada, US: Terry T. Fisk, Pauline Esteves, Barbara Durham and Madeline Esteves

Springs support some of the most diverse and unique ecosystems on Earth, but their stewardship has been hindered by the lack of knowledge of the distribution and density of springs across landscapes. Death Valley National Park (DEVA) and the State of Arizona in the USA are 2 landscapes for which significant knowledge exists about the distribution and density of springs. We used data on springs in DEVA to test the application of accumulation curves for estimating spring density. We used a spring-specific database in Arizona as an example of how to compile geospatial information for a large landscape. In both landscapes, springs are nonrandomly distributed because they emerge in topographically and geologically complex terrain and in clusters of multiple sources. Thus, estimates of their density depend on the spatial scale of inquiry and the extent to which sources are considered independent. For example, based on the current inventory, density in DEVA is estimated to be 0.033 to 0.074 springs/km2 depending on whether springs are defined as individual orifices or as complexes (groups of related spring orifices). The best data for springs as individual orifices yield an estimated 0.035 springs/km2 in Arizona. These densities are based on current data sets, and an unknown number of springs remain unmapped in both landscapes. To predict the total number of springs in DEVA, we used a modified density accumulation curve, involving the number of springs detected in surveys over the past century. The analysis indicated that undocumented springs may exist across the landscape. Knowledge of the distribution and density of the springs can help land and resource managers develop unbiased prioritizations of spring ecosystems for stewardship actions. Management actions could benefit further from an understanding of the emergence environment of a complex of springs, instead of each emergence point of a spring in a complex.

Gold Valley is typical of intermountain basins in Death Valley National Park (DVNP), California (USA). Using water-balance calculations, a GIS-based analytical model has been developed to estimate precipitational infiltration rates from catchment-scale topographic data (elevation and slope). The calculations indicate that groundwater recharge mainly takes place at high elevations (>1,100 m) during winter (average 1.78 mm/yr). A resistivity survey suggests that groundwater accumulates in upstream compartmentalized reservoirs and that the groundwater flows through basin fill and fractured bedrock. This explains the relationship between the upstream precipitational infiltration in Gold Valley and the downstream spring flow in Willow Creek. To verify the ability of local recharge to support high-flux springs in DVNP, a GIS-based model was also applied to the Furnace Creek catchment. The results produced insufficient total volume of precipitational infiltration to support flow from the main high-flux springs in DVNP under current climatic conditions. This study introduces a GIS-based infiltration model that can be integrated into the Death Valley regional groundwater flow model to estimate precipitational infiltration recharge. In addition, the GIS-based model can efficiently estimate local precipitational infiltration in similar intermountain basins in arid regions provided that the validity of the model is verified.

Through a collaboration with the National Park Service, CNPS and NatureServe ecologists compiled over 9,000 new and existing vegetation surveys and analyzed over 4,000 surveys from three parks and other areas in the Mojave Desert and related ecoregions. A vegetation classification was developed, identifying approximately 105 alliances and related types from Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Mojave National Preserve, and Death Valley National Park within the Mojave Desert Network Inventory & Monitoring (MOJN I&M). This project’s data analyses of three park areas spanned more than 4 million acres of area, plus enabled cross-analyses with other parks and preserves such as Joshua Tree National Park in California and Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Nevada. We used classification and ordination methods such as agglomerative cluster analysis, indicator species analysis, and Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) to inform the vegetation classification of the park areas. This dynamic analysis process allowed for broad development and interpretation of the National Vegetation Classification (NVC), resulting in an evaluation of and updates for the NVC hierarchy especially at the macrogroup, group, alliance, and association levels. This project also enabled ecologists to increase both exposure to and peer review of the NVC standard, and to promote the networking of ecologists in the western U.S. Various examples of the revised NVC hierarchy and expansion of the classification at the alliance and association levels are elucidated in this project. For example, the Pleuraphis rigida Desert Grassland Alliance was previously placed in a mid-elevation mixed desert scrub group and has now been moved into a desert dune & sand flat group within a different macrogroup, while another alliance of Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa / Pleuraphis rigida Shrubland Alliance has been accepted within that former desert scrub group.

Globally, invasion by non-native plants threatens resources that nature reserves are designated to protect. We assessed the status of non-native plant invasion on 1,662, 0.1-ha plots in Death Valley National Park, Mojave National Preserve, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. These parks comprise 2.5 million ha, 23% of the national park land in the contiguous USA. At least one non-native species inhabited 82% of plots. Thirty-one percent of plots contained one non-native species, 30% two, 17% three, and 4% four to ten non-native species. Red brome (Bromus rubens), an ‘ecosystem engineer’ that alters fire regimes, was most widespread, infesting 60% of plots. By identifying frequency of species through this assessment, early detection and treatment can target infrequent species or minimally invaded sites, while containment strategies could focus on established invaders. We further compared two existing systems for prioritizing species for management and found that a third of species on plots had no rankings available. Moreover, rankings did not always agree between ranking systems for species that were ranked. Presence of multiple non-native species complicates treatment, and while we found that 40% of plots contained both forb and grass invaders, exploiting accelerated phenology of non-natives (compared to native annuals) might help manage multi-species invasions. Large sizes of these parks and scale of invasion are formidable challenges for management. Yet, precisely because of their size, these reserves represent opportunities to conserve large landscapes of native species by managing non-native plant invasions.

While water sources that sustain many of the springs in the Mojave Desert have been poorly understood, desert wildlife and ecosystems can be highly dependent on such resources. With ever expanding use of desert groundwater, the effect of groundwater extraction on groundwater-dependent ecosystems in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts is an ongoing concern. Springs that are more susceptible to impacts from groundwater withdrawals are typically those in hydraulic connection with surrounding basin-fill aquifer systems. Since spatial and/or temporal data gaps prevent a detailed model of the groundwater system, this evaluation of groundwater forensic approaches identifies a range of characteristics and parameters that demonstrate key indicators of spring-aquifer connectivity using data collected during a California Mojave Desert-wide spring survey conducted during 2015–2016, and subsequent monitoring and sampling events in both the California Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. In total, monitoring and sampling took place at nearly 400 springs primarily in lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and scattered private lands where accessible. Springs in National Park Service units such as Joshua Tree National Park, Mojave National Preserve and Death Valley National Park and in military bases were not included in the investigation scope. The multiple lines of evidence described regarding spring-aquifer connectivity include field parameters for water, such as temperature, pH, and conductivity, as well as geochemical characteristics of water, such as stable isotope and radiocarbon analyses. While other information about the setting, such as spring-site geology, are important in evaluating flow-path characteristics, simple field reconnaissance of these springs may be inconclusive as to provenance, and they are ultimately of lesser importance than the actual water characteristics in identifying spring provenance and potential hydraulic linkage to basin-fill aquifer systems that are, or may in the future, be utilized for regional groundwater development.

Groundwater samples were collected from 11 springs in Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in southern Nevada and seven springs from Death Valley National Park in eastern California. Concentrations of the major cations (Ca, Mg, Na and K) and 45 trace elements were determined in these groundwater samples. The resultant data were subjected to evaluation via the multivariate statistical technique principal components analysis (PCA), to investigate the chemical relationships between the Ash Meadows and Death Valley spring waters, to evaluate whether the results of the PCA support those of previous hydrogeological and isotopic studies and to determine if PCA can be used to help delineate potential groundwater flow patterns based on the chemical compositions of groundwaters. The results of the PCA indicated that groundwaters from the regional Paleozoic carbonate aquifers (all of the Ash Meadows springs and four springs from the Furnace Creek region of Death Valley) exhibited strong statistical associations, whereas other Death Valley groundwaters were chemically different. The results of the PCA support earlier studies, where potentiometric head levels, δ18O and δD, geological relationships and rare earth element data were used to evaluate groundwater flow, which suggest groundwater flows from Ash Meadows to the Furnace Creek springs in Death Valley. The PCA suggests that Furnace Creek groundwaters are moderately concentrated Ash Meadows groundwater, reflecting longer aquifer residence times for the Furnace Creek groundwaters. Moreover, PCA indicates that groundwater may flow from springs in the region surrounding Scotty's Castle in Death Valley National Park, to a spring discharging on the valley floor. The study indicates that PCA may provide rapid and relatively cost-effective methods to assess possible groundwater flow regimes in systems that have not been previously investigated. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cultural use of spring-fed wetlands in Death Valley National Park, California has reduced populations of endemic macroinvertebrates. Studies were conducted during the spring and late autumn of 1994 to assess demography and habitat use by the Badwater snail (Assiminea infima), which is endemic to low-elevation, spring-fed habitats in Death Valley where its abundance is believed to be adversely affected by municipal diversions and habitat trampling by Park visitors. Effects on demography and habitat were examined at sites highly, lightly, and unaffected by these activities. Field experiments examined the response of its habitat and abundance to trampling.

We assessed four potential sources of error in estimating size of the population of Devils Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis); net, time of day, diver, and order of diver. Experimental dives (3/day) were conducted during 4 days in July 2009. Effects of the four sources of error on estimates from dive surveys were analyzed using a split-split plot ANOVA. Diver and order of diver had no significant influence on estimates, whereas the effect of presence or absence of a net was significant. Effects of time of day and presence or absence of a net showed a significant interaction with depth of water. Results indicated that pupfish may move upward during the dive, and as a result, the standard methods of dive surveys may underestimate abundance. RESUMEN—En este estudio, nosotros organizamos una serie de sesiones de buceo experimentales para evaluar cuatro fuentes de error que posiblemente influyen los calculos aproximados de la poblacion—la red, la hora del dia, el buzo, y el orden de los buzos. Estas sesiones de buceo experimentales incluian cuatro dias de buceo en julio de 2009, con tres 1 Graduate student and Associate Professor, respectively, Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University. 2 Assistant Unit Leader, U.S. Geological Survey Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Idaho. 3 Professor, Department of Statistics, Iowa State University. 4 Fish biologist, U.S. Forest Service – Bighorn National Forest. 5 Aquatic biologist and fish biologist, respectively, U.S. Park Service – Death Valley National Park.

Concentrations of 40 trace elements and other constituents in ground water from springs in Death Valley National Park were measured to investigate whether trace element composition of the ground water can be related to the aquifer materials. Samples from these springs were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) for the trace elements and by ion chromatography (IC) for the major anions. A Principal Component Analysis was performed on the data set. Surprise and Scotty's Springs formed one group; Texas, Nevares, and Travertine Springs formed another group; and Mesquite Springs did not group with any of the others. Scotty's and Surprise Spring issued from volcanic rocks; Texas, Nevares, and Travertine discharge from carbonate rocks; and Mesquite Spring is located in alluvial basin‐fill deposits. The first three components in each Principal Component Analysis accounted for approximately 95% of the variance in the data set. The Principal Component Analysis suggests that ground water inherits its trace element composition from the rocks or aquifer material with which it has interacted and may be used for the purpose of identifying ground‐water movement and source.

Motility is widely distributed across the tree of life and can be recognized by microscopy regardless of phylogenetic affiliation, biochemical composition, or mechanism. Microscopy has thus been proposed as a potential tool for detection of biosignatures for extraterrestrial life; however, traditional light microscopy is poorly suited for this purpose, as it requires sample preparation, involves fragile moving parts, and has a limited volume of view. In this study, we deployed a field-portable digital holographic microscope (DHM) to explore microbial motility in Badwater Spring, a saline spring in Death Valley National Park, and complemented DHM imaging with 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and shotgun metagenomics. The DHM identified diverse morphologies and distinguished run-reverse-flick and run-reverse types of flagellar motility. PICRUSt2- and literature-based predictions based on 16S rRNA gene amplicons were used to predict motility genotypes/phenotypes for 36.0-60.1% of identified taxa, with the predicted motile taxa being dominated by members of Burkholderiaceae and Spirochaetota. A shotgun metagenome confirmed the abundance of genes encoding flagellar motility, and a Ralstonia metagenome-assembled genome encoded a full flagellar gene cluster. This study demonstrates the potential of DHM for planetary life detection, presents the first microbial census of Badwater Spring and brine pool, and confirms the abundance of mobile microbial taxa in an extreme environment.