Abstract:
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In support of the National Park Service's vital signs monitoring program, we have developed a web portal for viewing and reporting ordinal sagebrush steppe vegetation monitoring data from multiple park units across the northwestern US. The effort is responding to the declining ecological conditions of protected-area sagebrush steppe communities due to biological invasions and other stressors. The protocol shared among parks relies on the collection of plant cover within quadrats, binned into cover categories. We use Access and SQL database tools, as well as Python and R, to first compile data and then code its retrieval through user-defined queries. Queries are self-documenting, contributing to reproducibility and smoother workflow. The large, distributed, and ordinal structure of the dataset has required us to develop novel data management and analytical strategies, including new ways to visualize ordinal data that are intuitive to a broad audience. Survey weights are incorporated into automated computation of design-based population estimators. Our portal supports evidence-based decision-making for scientists and managers to quickly access and communicate findings.
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