Capitol Reef National Park Research Articles

Contributions to an Insect Survey of Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Contributions to an Insect Survey of Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Livestock removal increases plant cover across a heterogeneous dryland landscape on the Colorado Plateau

Livestock removal is increasingly used as a management option to mitigate the negative impacts of grazing-related disturbances on rangelands. Removal generally increases plant cover, but it is unclear when, where, and by how much plant and soil cover changes can be expected. On the Colorado Plateau, complex geology, topography, soils, and climate all interact to mediate the relationship between land cover, climate, and disturbance. In this study we used new developments in land cover mapping and analysis to assess landscape plant and bare soil cover up to 30 years after livestock removal from two grazing allotments in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA. Results indicate that livestock removal increases plant cover 0.17%–0.32% per year and reduces bare soil cover 0.34%–0.41% per year, although these rates may be suppressed by warming temperatures. Soils, assessed through soil geomorphic units, played a strong but complex role in mediating land cover changes through time. These results suggest that livestock removal is an effective strategy for increasing plant cover and reducing bare soil on the Colorado Plateau, but including soil information in decision making will enhance efficiency by improving manager’s ability to prioritize management actions effectively across space and through time.

James E. Talmage and the Selenite Crystals

James E. Talmage and the Selenite Crystals

Ecopedagogy in action: An example of engaging and connecting | Making a case for ecopedagogical writing programs in Nepal

of English Language Learning at Utah Valley University (UVU) explored issues of sustainability and resource management in connection with Capitol Reef National Park, a three-hour drive away. Known for its geology and dark sky, Capitol Reef has a unique and delicately balanced desert ecosystem. Referring to the colorful rock layers, its name in Navajo translates to "Sleeping Rainbow." During a four-day trip taken every semester, students practiced sustainable habits, observing their low environmental impact firsthand. Since the park is without Internet or phone services, students also practiced being digitally disconnected.

Prehistoric Irrigation in Central Utah: Chronology, Agricultural Economics, and Implications

In 1928, Noel Morss was shown “irrigation ditches” along Pleasant Creek on the Dixie National Forest near Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, by a local guide who contended they were ancient. We relocated the site and mapped the route of an unusual mountain irrigation canal. We conducted excavations and employed OSL and AMS14C showing historic irrigation, and an earlier event between AD 1460 and 1636. Geomorphic evidence indicates that the canal existed prior to this time, but we cannot date its original construction. The canal is 7.2 km long, originating at 2,450 m asl and terminating at 2,170 m asl. Less than half of the system was hand constructed. We cannot ascribe the prehistoric use-event to an archaeological culture, language, or ethnic group, but the 100+ sites nearby are largely Fremont in cultural affiliation. We also report the results of experimental modeling of the capital and maintenance costs of the system, which holds implications for irrigation north of the Colorado River and farming during the Little Ice Age. The age of the prehistoric canal is consistent with a fragmentary abandonment of farming and continuity between ancient and modern tribes in Utah.

Situating and Sequencing Quagmire: The Role of Simulation-Based Gaming in Preparing Students for Future Learning at Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

We assessed the efficacy of the educational simulation Quagmire to deliver curriculum focused on park and protected area management in a time of record visitor use. Specifically, our study evaluated how Quagmire prepared contemporary students to maximize field-based learning during a week-long experience at Capitol Reef National Park, USA (Capitol Reef). Student essays and discussion responses (n = 71) were collected following the visit to Capitol Reef, and coded by two researchers familiar with Quagmire and simulation-based learning. Place-based education and preparation for future learning frameworks were used in qualitative analyses. Results indicate students perceived Quagmire prepared them to maximize learning at Capitol Reef, however, combining Quagmire with subsequent field-based learning did not substantially contribute to outcomes associated with connection to place. Implications for using Quagmire with contemporary student populations are discussed, as is the potential usefulness of sequencing simulation-based gaming with field-based learning.

The Benefits of Nature-based Writing for English Language Learners

This paper explores the value of ecopedagogies and ecojustice education in an increasingly nature-deficit and attention-directed world, and does so through the lens of place-based education. More specifically, this paper explores the positive impact nature-based writing in the Department of English Language Learning at Utah Valley University (UVU) has on English language learners (ELLs). The ecopedagogical program at UVU includes multiple opportunities for conducting environmental/economic research and writing in several relevant genres, but this paper primarily focuses on qualitative data retrieved from semester-long Nature Journals and a Wilderness Writing Workshop held during a four-day department-sponsored excursion to Capitol Reef National Park in south-central Utah in the United States. The benefits of nature-based writing include greater engagement and increased desire to write, improved vocabulary and language skills, more poetic writing, less reported stress, and a greater sense of connection to all other living beings. As added benefit, English language learners at UVU have also had opportunities to participate in civic-minded conferences, have been interviewed with the author on public radio, and are expected to have work published in an upcoming anthology.

Upper Triassic lithostratigraphy, depositional systems, and vertebrate paleontology across southern Utah

The Chinle Formation and the lower part of the overlying Wingate Sandstone and Moenave Formation were deposited in fluvial, lacustrine, paludal, and eolian environments during the Norian and Rhaetian stages of the Late Triassic (~230 to 201.3 Ma), during which time the climate shifted from subtropical to increasingly arid. In southern Utah, the Shinarump Member was largely confined to pre-Chinle paleovalleys and usually overprinted by mottled strata. From southeastern to southwestern Utah, the lower members of the Chinle Formation (Cameron Member and correlative Monitor Butte Member) thicken dramatically whereas the upper members of the Chinle Formation (the Moss Back, Petrified Forest, Owl Rock, and Church Rock Members) become erosionally truncated; south of Moab, the Kane Springs beds are laterally correlative with the Owl Rock Member and uppermost Petrified Forest Member. Prior to the erosional truncation of the upper members, the Chinle Formation was probably thickest in a southeast to northwest trend between Petrified Forest National Park and the Zion National Park, and thinned to the northeast due to the lower Chinle Formation lensing out against the flanks of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains, where the thickness of the Chinle is largely controlled by syndepositional salt tectonism. The Gartra and Stanaker Members of the Ankareh Formation are poorly understood Chinle Formation correlatives north of the San Rafael Swell. Osteichthyan fish, metoposaurid temnospondyls, phytosaurids, and crocodylomorphs are known throughout the Chinle Formation, although most remains are fragmentary. In the Cameron and Monitor Butte Members, metoposaurids are abundant and non-pseudopalatine phytosaurs are known, as is excellent material of the paracrocodylomorph Poposaurus; fragmentary specimens of the aetosaurs Calyptosuchus, Desmatosuchus, and indeterminate paratypothoracisins were probably also recovered from these beds. Osteichthyans, pseudopalatine phytosaurs, and the aetosaur Typothorax are especially abundant in the Kane Springs beds and Church Rock Member of Lisbon Valley, and Typothorax is also known from the Petrified Forest Member in Capitol Reef National Park. Procolophonids, doswelliids, and dinosaurs are known but extremely rare in the Chinle Formation of Utah. Body fossils and tracks of osteichthyans, therapsids, crocodylomorphs, and theropods are well known from the lowermost Wingate Sandstone and Moenave Formation, especially from the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm.

Upper Triassic lithostratigraphy, depositional systems, and vertebrate paleontology across southern Utah

The Chinle Formation and the lower part of the overlying Wingate Sandstone and Moenave Formation were deposited in fluvial, lacustrine, paludal, and eolian environments during the Norian and Rhaetian stages of the Late Triassic (~230 to 201.3 Ma), during which time the climate shifted from subtropical to increasingly arid. In southern Utah, the Shinarump Member was largely confined to pre-Chinle paleovalleys and usually overprinted by mottled strata. From southeastern to southwestern Utah, the lower members of the Chinle Formation (Cameron Member and correlative Monitor Butte Member) thicken dramatically whereas the upper members of the Chinle Formation (the Moss Back, Petrified Forest, Owl Rock, and Church Rock Members) become erosionally truncated; south of Moab, the Kane Springs beds are laterally correlative with the Owl Rock Member and uppermost Petrified Forest Member. Prior to the erosional truncation of the upper members, the Chinle Formation was probably thickest in a southeast to northwest trend between Petrified Forest National Park and the Zion National Park, and thinned to the northeast due to the lower Chinle Formation lensing out against the flanks of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains, where the thickness of the Chinle is largely controlled by syndepositional salt tectonism. The Gartra and Stanaker Members of the Ankareh Formation are poorly understood Chinle Formation correlatives north of the San Rafael Swell. Osteichthyan fish, metoposaurid temnospondyls, phytosaurids, and crocodylomorphs are known throughout the Chinle Formation, although most remains are fragmentary. In the Cameron and Monitor Butte Members, metoposaurids are abundant and non-pseudopalatine phytosaurs are known, as is excellent material of the paracrocodylomorph Poposaurus; fragmentary specimens of the aetosaurs Calyptosuchus, Desmatosuchus, and indeterminate paratypothoracisins were probably also recovered from these beds. Osteichthyans, pseudopalatine phytosaurs, and the aetosaur Typothorax are especially abundant in the Kane Springs beds and Church Rock Member of Lisbon Valley, and Typothorax is also known from the Petrified Forest Member in Capitol Reef National Park. Procolophonids, doswelliids, and dinosaurs are known but extremely rare in the Chinle Formation of Utah. Body fossils and tracks of osteichthyans, therapsids, crocodylomorphs, and theropods are well known from the lowermost Wingate Sandstone and Moenave Formation, especially from the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm.

Swimming Reptile Tracks in the Lower Triassic Moenkopi Formation, Capitol Reef National Park, UT

Abundant pre-dinosaurian tetrapod tracks, ichnofossil Chirotherium, have been found in the Moenkopi Formation. Swimming reptile tracks are found in the Torrey Member of the Moenkopi Formation in Capitol Reef National Park near Torrey, Utah. The tracks are preserved in a fine-grained sandstone deposited on a flat-lying coastal plain.

Semi‐arid vegetation response to antecedent climate and water balance windows

AbstractQuestionsCan we improve understanding of vegetation response to water availability on monthly time scales in semi‐arid environments using remote sensing methods? What climatic or water balance variables and antecedent windows of time associated with these variables best relate to the condition of vegetation? Can we develop credible near‐term forecasts from climate data that can be used to prepare for future climate change effects on vegetation?LocationSemi‐arid grasslands in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA.MethodsWe built vegetation response models by relating the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from MODIS imagery in Mar–Nov 2000–2013 to antecedent climate and water balance variables preceding the monthly NDVI observations. We compared how climate and water balance variables explained vegetation greenness and then used a multi‐model ensemble of climate and water balance models to forecast monthly NDVI for three holdout years.ResultsWater balance variables explained vegetation greenness to a greater degree than climate variables for most growing season months. Seasonally important variables included measures of antecedent water input and storage in spring, switching to indicators of drought, input or use in summer, followed by antecedent moisture availability in autumn. In spite of similar climates, there was evidence the grazed grassland showed a response to drying conditions 1 mo sooner than the ungrazed grassland. Lead times were generally short early in the growing season and antecedent window durations increased from 3 mo early in the growing season to 1 yr or more as the growing season progressed. Forecast accuracy for three holdout years using a multi‐model ensemble of climate and water balance variables outperformed forecasts made with a naïve NDVI climatology.ConclusionsWe determined the influence of climate and water balance on vegetation at a fine temporal scale, which presents an opportunity to forecast vegetation response with short lead times. This understanding was obtained through high‐frequency vegetation monitoring using remote sensing, which reduces the costs and time necessary for field measurements and can lead to more rapid detection of vegetation changes that could help managers take appropriate actions.

Vegetation Patterns Associated With Abiotic Factors and Human Impacts At the Capitol Reef Field Station

The purpose of this study is to describe plant community structure within Capitol Reef National Park and identify possible effects of disturbance. We used Capitol Reef Field Station (Capitol Reef FS) as a proxy for current and historic disturbance. We collected data using two, 100-m transects located at differing proximities to Capitol Reef FS in each of four community types: pinyon-juniper, sagebrush, riparian, and grassland. Species frequency and percent cover were recorded within each transect using 20, 4-m2 plots. We used ordinations to describe gradients in community structure as they relate to the environment and disturbance. We compared community structure and environmental factors by vegetation type, proximity to Capitol Reef FS, and through time. We found that the two main gradients in community structure were represented by a soil nutrient and texture gradient and an annual species and phosphorus gradient. Specifically, the concentrations of many soil nutrients were inversely related to soil texture size, while the amount of available phosphorus was positively associated with litter cover and the prevalence of annual species. Surface cover attributes, along with percent of annual and introduced species, differed among the vegetation types. Although we found that species composition is associated with proximity to Capitol Reef FS, no environmental factors differed by distance to the field station except for litter cover. Additional data are needed to separate the legacy effects of historical disturbance from current use of the field station.

Effects of Ungulate Disturbance and Weather Variation onPediocactus winkleri: Insights from Long-Term Monitoring

Population dynamics and effects of large ungulate disturbances on Winkler cactus (Pediocactus winkleri K.D. Heil) were documented annually over a 20-year time span at one plot within Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. This cactus species was federally listed as threatened in 1998. The study began in 1995 to gain a better understanding of life history aspects and threats to this species. Data were collected annually in early spring and included diameter, condition, reproductive structures, mortality, recruitment, and disturbance by large ungulates. We used odds ratio and probability model analyses to determine effects of large ungulate trampling and weather on these cacti. During the study, plot population declined by 18%, with trampling of cactus, low precipitation, and cold spring temperatures implicated as causal factors. Precipitation and temperature affected flowering, mortality, and recruitment. Large ungulate disturbances increased mortality and reduced the probability of flowering. These results suggest that large ungulate disturbances and recent climate regimes have had an adverse impact on long-term persistence of this cactus.

Five Tectonic Settings in Five National Parks and Forests: A Field Camp Experience

In summer 2014, Southern Utah University’s field camp visited five national parks and forests to study five different tectonic settings in five weeks. These included: thick-skinned contraction of the Laramide Orogeny at Capitol Reef National Park; normal faulting due to salt tectonics of the Paradox Formation at Arches National Park; thin-skinned folding and thrusting of the Sevier Orogeny at Fish Lake National Forest and Kolob Canyon of Zion National Park; foreland sedimentary transitions in the Book’s Cliffs areas of Utah; thrusting and conjugate fracture development due to the gravitational collapse of the Marysvale volcanic field at Bryce Canyon National Park; and a metamorphic core complex at Great Basin National Park and Hendry’s Creek in the Northern Snake Range of Nevada. This article provides a brief summary and photographic tour of the students’ experiences studying each tectonic environment, and it highlights wonderful geological features exposed in our national parks.

Lithospheric dismemberment and magmatic processes of the Great Basin–Colorado Plateau transition, Utah, implied from magnetotellurics

To illuminate rifting processes across the Transition Zone between the extensional Great Basin and stable Colorado Plateau interior, we collected an east‐west profile of 117 wideband and 30 long‐period magnetotelluric (MT) soundings along latitude 38.5°N from southeastern Nevada across Utah to the Colorado border. Regularized two‐dimensional inversion shows a strong lower crustal conductor below the Great Basin and its Transition Zone in the 15–35 km depth range interpreted as reflecting modern basaltic underplating, hybridization, and hydrothermal fluid release. This structure explains most of the geomagnetic variation anomaly in the region first measured in the late 1960s. Hence, the Transition Zone, while historically included with the Colorado Plateau physiographically, possesses a deep thermal regime and tectonic activity like that of the Great Basin. The deep crustal conductor is consistent with a rheological profile of a brittle upper crust over a weak lower crust, in turn on a stronger upper mantle (jelly sandwich model). Under the incipiently faulted Transition Zone, the conductor implies a vertically nonuniform mode of extension resembling early stages of continental margin formation. Colorado Plateau lithosphere begins sharply below the western boundary of Capitol Reef National Park as a resistive keel in the deep crust and upper mantle, with only a thin and weak Moho‐level crustal conductor near 45 km depth. Several narrow, steep conductors connect conductive lower crust with major surface faulting, some including modern geothermal systems, and in the context of other Great Basin MT surveying suggest connections between deep magma‐sourced fluids and the upper crustal meteoric regime. The MT data also suggest anisotropically interconnected melt over a broad zone in the upper mantle of the eastern Great Basin which has supplied magma to the lower crust, consistent with extensional mantle melting models and local shear wave splitting observations. We support a hypothesis that the Transition Zone location and geometry ultimately reflect the middle Proterozoic suturing between the stronger Yavapai lithosphere to the east and the somewhat weaker Mojave terrane to the west. We conclude that strength heterogeneity is the primary control on locus of deformation across the Transition Zone, with modulating force components.

Might Flowers of Invasive Plants Increase Native Bee Carrying Capacity? Intimations From Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

We compared the native bees visiting the flowers of three species of invasive plants, saltcedar (Tamarix spp.) and white and yellow sweet clover (Melilotus albus, M. officinalis), with those visiting seven concurrently blooming native plant species in mid-summer at three sites in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. Overall, as many total species of bees visited the flowers of the three invasive plant species as visited the seven natives. On average, invasive species were visited by twice as many bee species as were natives. With a single exception, visitors of invasives were generalist bees, rather than specialists. Colletes petalostemonis, the only native legume specialist recorded, was an abundant forager on the flowers of both species of Melilotus, demonstrating that at least some specialist bees will move to invasive plants that are closely related to their usual hosts. Species abundant on the flowers of invasives tended to collect both pollen and nectar, suggesting that bees are using pollen of Tamarix and Melilotus to provision their offspring. We argue that invasives with entomophilous flowers are unlikely to either facilitate the reproduction of uncommon native plants or consistently compete with them for pollinators. Rather, they are likely, over time, to selectively increase the carrying capacity and population size of native bees, specifically generalists, and specialists of closely related plant species.

Effects of the Insecticide Phosmet on Solitary Bee Foraging and Nesting in Orchards of Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Capitol Reef National Park, in southcentral Utah, contains 22 small orchards planted with antique fruit varieties by Mormon pioneers beginning over a century ago. The orchards continue to be managed in a pick-and-pay program, which includes spraying with phosmet to suppress codling moth (Cydia pomonella L.). The park is also home to a rich diversity of flowering plants, many of which are rare, bee-pollinated, and have populations within 1 km of the orchards. Over 3 yr, we studied the short-term effects of phosmet spraying on bee populations: (1) foraging on plants within the orchard understory and adjacent to it; and (2) nesting in, and at several distances from, the orchards. We recorded a rich bee fauna (47 taxa) in the orchards and on plants nearby. In 2 yr (2002 and 2004), we found no difference in the number of native bee visits to several species of plants flowering in and near to orchards immediately before and 1 d after spraying. Conversely, our nesting studies using the semidomesticated alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile rotundata (F.), showed strong significant declines in the number of adult males, nesting females, and progeny production subsequent to spraying at distances up to 160 m from sprayed orchards where the bees were presumably foraging. We showed that M. rotundata is negatively affected by phosmet spraying and suggest that caution should be exercised in its use in areas where bees are apt to forage.

Effects of the Insecticide Phosmet on Solitary Bee Foraging and Nesting in Orchards of Capitol Reef National Park, Utah

Capitol Reef National Park, in southcentral Utah, contains 22 small orchards planted with antique fruit varieties by Mormon pioneers beginning over a century ago. The orchards continue to be managed in a pick-and-pay program, which includes spraying with phosmet to suppress codling moth (Cydia pomonella L.). The park is also home to a rich diversity of flowering plants, many of which are rare, bee-pollinated, and have populations within 1 km of the orchards. Over 3 yr, we studied the short-term effects of phosmet spraying on bee populations: (1) foraging on plants within the orchard understory and adjacent to it; and (2) nesting in, and at several distances from, the orchards. We recorded a rich bee fauna (47 taxa) in the orchards and on plants nearby. In 2 yr (2002 and 2004), we found no difference in the number of native bee visits to several species of plants flowering in and near to orchards immediately before and 1 d after spraying. Conversely, our nesting studies using the semidomesticated alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile rotundata (F.), showed strong significant declines in the number of adult males, nesting females, and progeny production subsequent to spraying at distances up to 160 m from sprayed orchards where the bees were presumably foraging. We showed that M. rotundata is negatively affected by phosmet spraying and suggest that caution should be exercised in its use in areas where bees are apt to forage.

Orchard pollination in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA. Honey bees or native bees?

Capitol Reef National Park in central Utah, USA surrounds 22 managed fruit orchards started over a century ago by Mormon pioneers. Honey bees are imported for pollination, although the area in which the Park is embedded has over 700 species of native bees, many of which are potential orchard pollinators. We stud- ied the visitation of native bees to apple, pear, apricot, and sweet cherry over 2 years. Thirty species of bees visited the Xowers but, except for pear Xowers, most were uncommon compared to honey bees. Evidence that honey bees prevented native bees from foraging on orchard crop Xowers was equivocal: generally, honey bee and native bee visitation rates to the Xowers were not negatively correlated, nor were native bee visitation rates positively correlated with distance of orchards from honey bee hives. Conversely, competition was tentatively suggested by much larger numbers of honey bees than natives on the Xowers of apples, apricots and cherry; and by the large increase of native bees on pears, where honey bee numbers were low. At least one-third of the native bee species visiting the Xowers are potential pollinators, including cavity-nesting species such as Osmia lignaria propinqua, currently managed for small orchard pollination in the US, plus several fossorial spe- cies, including one rosaceous Xower specialist (Andrena milwaukiensis). We suggest

Use of individualistic streamflow-vegetation relations along the Fremont River, Utah, USA to assess impacts of flow alteration on wetland and riparian areas

We analyzed the transverse pattern of vegetation along a reach of the Fremont River in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA using models that support both delineation of wetland extent and projection of the changes in wetland area resulting from upstream hydrologic alteration. We linked stage-discharge relations developed by a hydraulic model to a flow-duration curve derived from the flow history in order to calculate the inundation duration of 361 plots (0.5 × 2 m). Logistic regression was used to relate plant species occurrence in plots to inundation duration. A weighted average of the wetland indicator values of species was used to characterize plots as Aquatic, Wetland, Transitional, or Upland. Finally, we assessed how alterations in the flow duration curve would change the relative widths of these four zones. The wetland indicator values of species and the wetland prevalence index scores of plots were strongly correlated with inundation duration. Our results support the concept that plants classified as wetland species typically occur gradient study reach of the Fremont River that satisfied the vegetation criterion for a regulatory wetland was narrow (2 m wide). Both the unvegetated Aquatic zone (7.8 m) and the Transitional zone (8 m) were substantially wider. The Transitional zone included the maxima of several species and was, therefore, not merely a combination of elements of the Wetland and Upland zones. Multiplicative increases or decreases in streamflow regime produced a wetter, or drier, bottomland vegetation, respectively. Systematic reductions in flow variability reduced the width of both the Wetland and Transitional zones and increased the width of the Upland zone. Our approach is widely applicable to inform water management decisions involving changes in flow regime.