National Park Service

Zooplankton Assemblages from Mountain Lake Study Sites in the North Coast and Cascades Network 2009 Field Season Report National Park Service

This report presents zooplankton community assemblage data from the 2009 field season during the development of the draft Mountain Lakes Monitoring Protocol in the North Coast and Cascades Network (NCCN) as part of the Inventory and Monitoring Program of the National Park Service (NPS). The program focuses on vital signs, which are defined as information-rich attributes that are used to track the overall condition, or health of park natural resources to provide early warning of situations that require intervention (Fancy et al. 2009). Monitoring has been implemented throughout the National Park system; for this purpose, 270 park units have been organized by ecoregion into 32 networks.