How does the Inventory Monitoring Program (IMP) support National Park Service mission?
The IMP directly supports the mission by giving resource managers and other people who make decisions on the parks the information they need to make quality decisions. The IMP is responsible for finding out what’s going on with the species in the parks. Are they declining or increasing? Are there new predators moving in? The [National] Park Service is in charge of protecting not only the natural resources in the parks but the cultural resources as well. In order to protect those natural resources, we have to know how they’re changing and what’s going on with them. What is the importance of absent data in an IMP? Well, the fact that something does not exist in this specific place where somebody has looked is as important as if they actually found something there. If your looking in a particular pond that seems like it has great habitat for amphibians but there are no amphibians there it’s really important to understand why. Is there something in that pond, possibly a pollutant. Or is th
