Supplemental vegetation monitoring plots at Wind Cave National Park to accelerate learning of the Annual Brome Adaptive Management (ABAM) model
The Annual Brome Adaptive Management (ABAM) project is a consortium of seven parks in the Northern Great Plains (NGP) working together to better understand how to control invasive annual grasses (including Bromus species) through an adaptive management approach. This approach is supported by a quantitative model that uses current data from standardized vegetation monitoring plots in all seven parks to annually update the model’s parameters and predictions regarding the effects of different management actions on invasive annual grasses and other components of the mixed-grass prairie plant community. This updating of the model is called “learning.” The ABAM model includes treatments in which the herbicides indaziflam and imazapic are applied alone or in combination with or without a prescribed fire preceding or following their application. However, the original ABAM model did not have field data for the effects of those treatments on target invasive annual grasses and other components of the vegetation in conditions like those that frequently occur in ABAM parks (i.e., ungrazed). The purpose of this study is to increase the amount of information about these treatments and therefore accelerate the rate of learning accomplished in the adaptive management cycle.