Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

When the climate changes enough, the vegetation communities growing in any given place will also change. Under an expanded bimodal climate zone, some plant communities in western national parks are more likely to change than others. National Park Service ecologists and partners investigated the future conditions that may force some of this change. Having this information can help park managers decide whether to resist, direct, or accept the change.

Better training for employees means better chances for bats in Organ Pipe National Monument!

Thanks to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, NPS projects in the West hope to collect native seeds to aide in accelerating repairs to damage due to wildfire, mining, flood, or other causes.

The Cenozoic Era (66 million years ago [MYA] through today) is the "Age of Mammals." North America’s characteristic landscapes began to develop during the Cenozoic. Birds and mammals rose in prominence after the extinction of giant reptiles. Common Cenozoic fossils include cat-like carnivores and early horses, as well as ice age woolly mammoths.

A social insect biologist analyzes longtime environmental impacts on population size and survival.

Across the US, changes in water availability are altering which plants grow where. These changes are evident at a broad scale. But not all areas experience the same climate in the same way, even within the boundaries of a single national park. A new dataset gives park managers a valuable tool for understanding why vegetation has changed and how it might change in the future under different climate-change scenarios.

Climate is one of many ecological indicators monitored by the National Park Service (NPS) Division of Inventory & Monitoring (I&M). Climate data help scientists to understand ecosystem processes and help to explain many of the patterns and trends observed in other natural-resource monitoring. In NPS units of the American Southwest, three I&M networks monitor climate using the scientific protocol described here.

Sonoran Desert Network scientists visit Organ Pipe National Monument every year to monitor climate and groundwater. By taking measurements of these key resources each year, we can better understand how they may be changing over time. This information can help us understand changes in other natural resources on the park as well. This report summarizes Water Year 2024 climate and groundwater data at the park.