Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Saguaro ... - USGS

Acknowledgements
Thanks to Saguaro National Park Superintendent Sarah Craighead, Chief of Science and
Resource Management Meg Weesner, and biologists Natasha Kline and Don Swann for providing
leadership and administrative support for this project. Other park staff who assisted our project
included Matt Daniels, Mark Holden, Bob Lineback, Todd Nelson, Kathy Schon, Mike Ward,
and Jim Williams. This project was funded by the National Park Service (NPS) Inventory and
Monitoring program (I&M) and resulted from the collaboration of many people at the University
of Arizona (UA), NPS, and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Administration of the project was
facilitated by the Desert Southwest and Colorado Plateau Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units
(CESUs). The Southern Arizona Office of the NPS assisted with the development of the original
study plan that led directly to initiation of this project. Additional support (monetary and inkind)
for infrared-triggered photography was provided by the Western National Parks Association,
Friends of Saguaro National Park, and the UA Undergraduate Biology Internship Program.
Andy Hubbard at the Sonoran Desert Network I&M program has been a great advocate
of our program. He also provided funds for Don Swann to work on this report. Kathy Davis,
Superintendent of Tuzigoot and Montezuma Castle national monuments played an instrumental
role in this project by providing important early initiative. Larry Norris at the Desert Southwest
CESU has provided strong support for our program and spent considerable time and effort
providing clear and timely administrative assistance. Matt Goode, Don Swann, and Dale Turner
provided much of the early planning for this project; we are indebted to their vision and work.
Eric Albrecht, to whom this report is dedicated, was an outstanding spokesperson and leader of
the program; he was an invaluable member of the team and his contributions are sorely missed.
We thank a core group of dedicated field biologists who collected a wealth of data at
Saguaro National Park: Greta Anderson, Theresa DeKoker, Sky Jacobs, Shawn Lowery, Meg
Quinn, Rene Tanner, Dale Turner, and Emily Willard (plants); Dan Bell, Kevin Bonine, James
Borgmeyer, Matt Goode, Dave Prival, and Mike Wall (amphibians and reptiles); Eric Albrecht,
Gavin Beiber, Aaron Flesch, Chris Kirkpatrick, and Gabe Martinez (birds); Clare Austin, Eric
Albrecht, Mike Chehoski, Ryan Gann, Michael Olker, Neil Perry, Jason Schmidt, Ronnie Sidner,
Mike Sotak, Albi von Dach, Michael Ward, and Sandy Wolf (mammals). We are appreciative of
the following people, many of whom never ventured into the field, but whose work in the office
made the field effort successful: Debbie Angell, Jennifer Brodsky, Chuck Conrad, Louise Conrad,
Brian Cornelius, Taylor Edwards, Carianne Funicelli, Marina Hernandez, Colleen McClain,
Heather McClaren, Lindsay Norpel, Ryan Reese, Jill Rubio, Brent Sigafus, Taffy Sterpka, Jenny
Treiber, Zuleika Valdez, Alesha Williams, and Erin Zylstra. Pam Anning, Kristen Beaupre, and
Matthew Daniels assisted with database design. Pam Anning also provided the maps for this
report. Additional administrative support was provided by Valery Catt, Jenny Ferry, Andy
Honaman, Terri Rice, and especially Cecily Westphal of the School of Natural Resources at the
UA. Special thanks to Pam Anning, Lisa Carder, and Kathleen Docherty for their years of hard
work on all aspects of the project.
Technical support was graciously provided by the following experts: Dan Austin,
Michael Chamberland, Phil Jenkins, and Charlotte and John Reeder at the UA Herbarium; Tom
Huels of the UA ornithology collection; George Bradley of the UA herpetology collection; and
Yar Petryszyn and Melanie Bucci of the UA mammal collection. Thanks to Sharon Megdal and
Peter Wierenga, the current and former directors, respectively, of the UA Water Resources
Research Center, and all their staff. Thanks to Mau-Crimmins et al. (2005) and Sprouse et al.
(2002) for use of their background information on the park and Aaron Flesch (Flesch 2001) for
use of some of his discussion in the mammal chapter. We received helpful reviews of earlier
versions of this report from Danielle Foster, Natasha Kline, Jeff Lovich, Theressa Mau-
Crimmins, Larry Norris, Cecil Schwalbe, Don Swann, and Meg Wessner.
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