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Field Guide to the Plant Community Types of Voyageurs National Park

By Don Faber-Langendoen, Norman Aaseng, Kevin Hop, and Michael Lew-Smith

U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods 2–A4

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Introduction

The objective of the U.S. Geological Survey-National Park Service Vegetation Mapping Program is to classify, describe, and map vegetation for most of the park units within the National Park Service (NPS). The program was created in response to the NPS Natural Resources Inventory and Monitoring Guidelines issued in 1992. Products for each park include digital files of the vegetation map and field data, keys and descriptions to the plant communities, reports, metadata, map accuracy verification summaries, and aerial photographs. Interagency teams work in each park and, following standardized mapping and field sampling protocols, develop products and vegetation classification standards that document the various vegetation types found in a given park.

The use of a standard national vegetation classification system and mapping protocol facilitate effective resource stewardship by ensuring compatibility and widespread use of the information throughout the NPS as well as by other Federal and state agencies. These vegetation classifications and maps and associated information support a wide variety of resource assessment, park management, and planning needs, and provide a structure for framing and answering critical scientific questions about plant communities and their relation to environmental processes across the landscape. This field guide is intended to make the classification accessible to park visitors and researchers at Voyageurs National Park, allowing them to identify any stand of natural vegetation and showing how the classification can be used in conjunction with the vegetation map (Hop and others, 2001).

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Voyageurs National Park

U.S. National Vegetation Classification

Dichotomous Field Key to the Plant Communities at Voyageurs National Park

How to use the Key

Key to the Associations

How to Read the Fact Sheets

Layout and Conventions

Fact Sheets: List of Plant Communities

Fact Sheets A1–A49

Additional Community Types

References Cited

Suggested Citation

Faber-Langendoen, D., Aaseng, N., Hop K., and Lew-Smith, M., 2007, Field guide to the plant community types of Voyageurs National Park: U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods 2–A4, 156 p.

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