Valles Caldera National Preserve36 ページ中 27 ページ
Life on Redondo Peak: Plants, Moths and a Marmot at Valles Caldera's Summit
A yellow-bellied marmot seen on Redondo Peak in 2015 was the first one ever recorded in the Jemez Mountains, and four more sightings followed. That is one of the finds from a National Park Service (NPS) look at plants and arthropods (insects, spiders and their relatives) at the highest point in Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico. It is one article in a series on the preserve's 2022 resource assessment.
Spruce-fir forest habitat on Redondo Peak (NPS photo by Bob Parmenter).
The peak and its three habitats
Redondo Peak, about 11,260 feet high, is the highest point in the preserve and the second highest in the Jemez Mountains. It matters biologically and culturally: plants and animals that need cool, moist conditions live there, and it is a sacred place to many Indigenous groups. Its high-elevation communities are spruce-fir forests, upper montane meadows and exposed rock or scree fields called felsenmeers, together 15% of the preserve. The NPS made its first comprehensive inventory of plants and animals there in 2014. Only the plants and arthropods are reported here.
| Habitat | What it is |
|---|---|
| Spruce-fir forest | Found at the highest elevations in the Southwest, about 10% of the Southern Rocky Mountain region. The largest stands are in the San Francisco Peaks, the White Mountains of east-central Arizona, and the Jemez Mountains. Warmer, drier conditions have increased pest activity, and bark beetles and pathogens have done major damage in the preserve |
| Upper montane meadow | Less than 3% of the region. Grasses and grass-like plants dominate and trees are rare. Trees can encroach where frequent low-severity fire is absent, because of past grazing and climate change |
| Felsenmeer rock field | More rocks than plants, with poor soil that holds little water, so growing conditions are harsh. It gives the preserve some of its best habitat for the American pika |
Montane meadow on Redondo Peak (NPS photo by Bob Parmenter).
A felsenmeer slope on Redondo Peak (NPS photo by Bob Parmenter).
Threats
Species that rely on cool, moist conditions are at risk from climate change: as it warms, species at high elevations have nowhere higher to go. A climate vulnerability assessment for New Mexico ranked the Jemez Mountains at the top of the list, based on significantly warmer and more variable temperatures since 1970 and significantly less precipitation since 1991. An unusually large fire in 2013 also burned Redondo Peak, damaging habitat, including that of the endangered Jemez Mountains salamander.
What the assessment found
Ecologists at Utah State University summarized the plant species richness from the 2014 inventory, compared it with accepted descriptions of the same community types elsewhere in the Southern Rockies, and tallied the arthropods by number of specimens and species in each habitat.
- Plants: 101 species across the three communities, only three non-native. The 98 native species are nearly 20% of all plant species in the preserve. Spruce-fir areas had the most plant species (76), then meadows (57) and felsenmeers (36). Plant composition looks similar to what is described elsewhere in each community's range.
- Bryophytes: An earlier inventory of the preserve in 2009 to 2011, the first, recorded more than 500 samples of 113 species of mosses, liverworts and hornworts, 98 of them mosses, including seven new to New Mexico. One new species was found on Redondo Peak. The inventory was part of a master's thesis at New Mexico State University.
- Moths and spiders: 3,606 moths of 60 species, including four new for the preserve, identified by a U.S. Department of Agriculture lepidopterist, plus at least 75 species of spiders and five species of harvestmen. Harvestmen, or daddy longlegs, are arachnids related to spiders but of a different group, Opiliones; they have a round, compact body and very long legs but no silk glands, no webs, no fangs and no venom.
- Mammals: the yellow-bellied marmot sighting. The nearest known populations are in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the northeast.
American pika, a mammal sensitive to the effects of climate change (NPS photo by Sally King).
Boreal owl, another climate-sensitive species found on Redondo Peak (NPS photo by Jim Peaco).
The ecologists suggested monitoring chosen plants and animals in each of the three communities to follow the health of this high-elevation system. Species sensitive to climate change that are worth tracking include the boreal owl, the American pika and six plant species.
What managers can do
The study can inform planning and management for the high-elevation communities on Redondo Peak, and the authors recommended a list of climate-sensitive species to monitor. The report also named two questions still to answer: has species richness or diversity at high elevations changed over time, and how is the biological community likely to change under future climate scenarios?
Sources
- National Park Service, "Life on Redondo Peak: Plant and Arthropod Diversity at Valles Caldera's Highest Elevations" (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/nrca_vall_2021_redondopeak.htm), summarizing J. Albright and others, 2022, Natural resource conditions at Valles Caldera National Preserve: Findings & management considerations for selected resources, Natural Resource Report NPS/VALL/NRR-2022/2409; rewritten in hubnx's own words.