#park science

[mountrainiernps]

Glacier monitoring at Mount Rainier gives insight to summer stream flows.

Every year crews from the North Coast & Cascades Inventory & Monitoring Network track glacier health at Mount Rainier. In the spring, crews visit Nisqually and Emmons glaciers to measure how much new snow has accumulated on the glacier surface during the winter. Snow depth and density measurements determine how much water is held in that snowpack (snow water equivalent). Measurement rods are also installed to track snow and ice melt over the coming summer. This allows us to track accumulation (snow that becomes added ice) and melt (lost ice) over the long term.

NPS/S.Hagen Photo: Glacier monitoring lead smiles at the success of the spring glacier trip on the lower Nisqually, 4/22/24.

In the short term, the snow depth measurements, along with data contributed from climate stations, can help us anticipate melt water availability in the summer.

Graph of SWE at two locations on the Nisqually Glacier during drought years compared to average.

Results of the snow water equivalent (SWE), or how much water would result if all the snow melted, at two different elevations on the Nisqually Glacier are displayed in the graph. Notably, the results from a 4/22/24 survey on the Nisqually Glacier are below the average. In 2024, SWE at these elevations is higher than the drought year of 2005 but below the drought year of 2015 at both elevations.

Snow is not the only contribution to water in streams, but in our region it’s an important source.

[glaciernps]

Can alpine plants and animals escape the heat?

How do higher temperatures affect higher elevations? If you’ve been up to Logan Pass during the recent heat wave, did it feel much cooler than down below?

When you’re a tiny alpine flower, like the alpine glacier poppy (Papaver pygmaeum), you're well-suited to cold mountaintops. It’s not easy to escape the heat—especially if it’s warmer year-round. At the top of a mountain, there is no more uphill, and it’s hard for plants to migrate very far or fast. Around the world, alpine plant and animal communities are changing in response to a warming climate. Scientists in national parks are tracking these shifts as part of an international alpine monitoring program. The program is called GLORIA - Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments.

What they learn helps park managers protect the resiliency of alpine ecosystems.

Fun fact: Glacier National Park had the first GLORIA site in North America!

Learn more: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/mountains/gloria.htm

[image description: a tiny orange-and-yellow flower grows out of a rock jumble on a mountaintop]

[mountrainiernps]

Mapping Amphibians on Park Roads

You might expect deer or even bears along park roads, but what about amphibians? To find out, park scientists conducted night road surveys following rain events in the spring through fall months. The goal was to map amphibian presence along several roads at Mount Rainier National Park to help mitigate road-related impacts to amphibians. These impacts include vehicle roadkill, annual road maintenance activities, and Federal Highways restoration projects.

Amphibians encountered were identified to species, measured, locations recorded, and road-killed individuals collected. We detected 1243 amphibians between 2014 and 2016 with 52 % of those encountered road killed. Twelve of 14 species known to occur at Mount Rainier were found on park roads during these surveys including 2 species of concern (Plethodon larselli and P. vandykei). The most common species detected were Coastal Tailed Frogs (Ascaphus truei), which accounted for 63.8 % of all amphibian species encountered (793 total, 55.3% road-killed).

Based on observations, it appears that Coastal Tailed Frogs are attracted to wet pavement much like snakes are attracted to warm pavement. Their typical response on being approached either by vehicle or on foot was to crouch, lying prone upon the road. This response may in part account for the 55% mortality rate observed.

The surveys identified several amphibian hotspots associated with wetland features. The mapping project has served as a resource for park management to mitigate impacts of road rehabilitation projects on amphibians, and to evaluate site specific options at known amphibian hotspots to mitigate impacts of road-associated maintenance operations.

Read more about this work in the “Mapping Amphibian Occurrence on the Road System at Mount Rainier National Park” science brief.

NPS/A.S. Anderson Photo of a Coastal Tailed Frog on a park road. ~kl

[mountrainiernps]

Bat Week: Telemetry

Where do bats go in the winter? For many species of bats in western North America, the answer is that we don’t know. Some species migrate and some stay in the area, but where exactly many species of bats spend the winter is still a mystery. In eastern North America, many species of bats congregate in huge colonies in caves and mines to hibernate, but those same species in the west appear to have different hibernation tactics. A handful of studies in western states have found that some bats are hibernating alone or in small groups in cracks in rocks, in talus fields, and even in holes between tree roots. Studying the over-winter ecology of bats in the Pacific Northwest will help to fill in our knowledge gaps on the lives of bats and understand how the spread of the disease White-nose Syndrome, which infects bats during hibernation, may be different in western populations. There is still a lot to be learned about bat hibernation in Washington, so researchers at Mount Rainier National Park are working to track bats to their winter roosts using radio telemetry. To do this, bats are captured and affixed with a tiny transmitter, smaller than a paperclip, and NPS staff attempt to follow the radio signal emitted from the transmitter. This is a very challenging job, much like searching for a needle in a haystack, except the needle can fly and the haystack is a whole mountain!

NPS Photo of a bat affixed with a radio transmitter, the antenna extending from the back of the bat, and a wing band so the bat can be identified if it is recaptured in the future after the radio transmitter has fallen off. ~mh/kl

[mountrainiernps]

Bat Week : Acoustic Monitoring

Bats are tough animals to study. They are tiny, flying, nocturnal, and can hide in tiny cracks and crevices. For these reasons, acoustic monitoring, or recording bat sounds on the landscape, has become one of the most important tools in bat research. Recording units can be programmed to start recording during hours of peak bat activity and can be left to collect data for long periods. Each species of bat has a unique echolocation call. The patterns produced by bat sonar are different in different species, so bat species that are nearly impossible to tell apart visually can be distinguished by their calls. Recordings of bat calls are processed through software that translates the call into a graphic representation, called a sonogram, based on frequency, amplitude, and duration of the call. Sonograms of the calls of different bat species can be used to identify the bat.

NPS Image comparing sonograms of a silver-haired bat and little brown bat from Ohanapecosh. ~mh/kl

[mountrainiernps]

Bat Week: Monitoring White-nose Syndrome

We have all experienced what happens when humans face a pandemic disease, but did you know that other animals have pandemics too? Bats in North America have been going through their own pandemic since 2007, when bats in New York State were found infected with an unknown fungus. This fungus infects bats while they are hibernating and can cause a disease called White-nose Syndrome, named for the white fungal growth on the muzzle of an infected bat. This disease was limited to the eastern part of North America for several years, but in 2016 a bat in Washington state tested positive for the fungus, not far from Mount Rainier National Park. Just like researchers working on the Coronavirus pandemic in humans, bat researchers are working hard to understand how the disease spreads and how to protect bat populations.

Every spring, after bats emerge from hibernation and return to their summer roosts, biologists from the National Park Service capture bats to test for the fungus that causes White-nose Syndrome. Bats are captured at Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic National Parks, as well as at San Juan Island National Historic Park.

There are several ways that park biologists test for the fungus that causes White-nose syndrome:

- Skin Swabs - Biologists collect swab samples from each bat’s face and wings. These swabs are then taken to a genetics lab at Oregon State University and tested for the fungus that causes White-nose Syndrome. NPS Photo

- Ultraviolet (UV) Light - Some bats that have been recently infected with a fungus will have spots on their skin that glow orange under UV light. When a biologist finds one of these glowing spots on a bat’s wing, a small tissue sample, called a biopsy, is taken and tested for infection. NPS Photo

- Guano - Biologists collect samples of bat poop, or guano, from across the Washington State National Parks each year. Picking up a few pieces of guano is much easier than capturing bats, providing a broader range of sample populations for monitoring the spread of the disease. Guano can also be used to identify what bat species it came from, so in addition to disease monitoring, scientists can learn which bat species are present across the landscape just from picking up their poop!

~mh/kl

[mountrainiernps]

Scientists use a variety of tools to identify where bats go after they leave their summer roost, in hopes of finding where they hibernate so park scientists can assess their vulnerability to White Nose Syndrome (WNS). WNS is a fungal disease that affects bats during hibernation. It is often displayed as a powdery white substance around infected bats’ muzzles and wings. It has killed millions of bats in the US, up to 99% of some populations. In addition to using acoustic detectors and radio telemetry, scientists are partnering with Rogue Detection Teams to use scent-trained dogs to find bat hibernacula (hibernating roosts) at Mount Rainier National Park.

Rogue Detection Teams has worked in other national parks (including Yosemite and Acadia) and other protected areas around the world. Detection dogs are considered a noninvasive tool to survey for wildlife and the trained dogs, who are fetch obsessed, are only interested in the odors they are taught as a means to play fetch.

Training the dogs involves four steps. First, park scientists collect and dehydrated bat guano (bat feces) as well as tiny clippings of bat fur for scent training. The Rogue Detection Team trainers hide these around the landscape and into rock crevasses, mimicking, from the dog's point of view, where the bat hibernacula typically are (scree slopes, rock outcroppings). The dogs are then introduced to the odor of live captured bats (captures are conducted by NPS personnel). The bats are held by trained professionals, the dogs sniff the bat, and are then rewarded immediately afterward with their ball. Naturally deceased and desiccated bats are utilized to spread their odor on rock formations to simulate swarming activity. The final stage is using a "hot spot", or a location in the wild where there is a known population of the target species, to transition the dogs from introduced odors (which have human odor affiliated with it) to locating a bat odor on their own in the wild.

Photos: Collette Yee with Rogue Detection Teams ~kl

[mountrainiernps]

How do you measure a glacier?

Maybe you use photographs to make records of a glacier’s location over time?

Perhaps you use surveying equipment like theodolites or their current day equivalent with lasers and computers? Then you could repeatedly measure distances and elevations across the glacier and its surrounding lands.

Or you could use satellites and lidar-equipped aircraft to gather data from on high to analyze with computers?

And my favorite, steam drills and ablation stakes. Then you can study the lower stretches of a glacier over the year to look at changes as it melts and loses mass. (Compare this to the upper parts of the glacier where the snow and ice accumulate and add to the glacier’s mass.)

All these methods, and more have been used to study the Nisqually Glacier. When Longmire to Paradise road was developed early in the park’s history, it crossed the Nisqually River just a little bit below the end (or terminus) of the Nisqually Glacier. That made the Nisqually Glacier some what easy to access and study. With advances in transportation and scientific tools, the opportunities and data have increased.

Though the glacier is no longer visible from the road today, there are many viewpoints available. Do prefer the view from right outside your car at Ricksecker Point? Or maybe you enjoy the hikes at Paradise, like Nisqually Vista Trail or the Glacier Vista view from the Skyline Trail? What is your favorite place to enjoy the Nisqually Glacier? ~ams

NPS/Spillane Photo. View of Mount Rainier and Nisqually Glacier from Glacier View on the Skyline Trail at Paradise. August, 2014. NPS Photo. Black and white image of Nisqually Glacier and ice cream stand from location near current road and bring over the Nisqually Bridge. 1915. NPS Climbing Ranger Photo. Park scientists placing an ablation stake in lower Nisqually Glacier. 2013.

More information on Mount Rainier’s glaciers can be found here https://www.nps.gov/mora/learn/nature/glaciers.htm