At first glance, the Kaiparowits Plateau seems to be a lifeless landscape. But first impressions can be deceiving.
The Kaiparowits Plateau, like other areas in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, is teeming with plant and animal life. And what has botanists and biologists so excited is that many of the plants, animals and insects identified there are found nowhere else in the world."The monument provides an unparalleled opportunity to study speciation and evolution," explains Jayne Belnap of the biological resources division of the U.S. Geological Survey. "Having ancient plant species alongside new species gives us the opportunity to examine how plant species adapt to different conditions . . . and sort out the different roles of temperature and precipitation in the structuring of plant and animal communities."
The monument, Belnap says, is home to about 300 species of amphibians, mammals, reptiles and birds, including more than 20 species of birds of prey ranging from the bald eagle to the peregrine falcon.
Efforts by wildlife biologists over the years have re-established bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain elk and turkeys to the local ecosystem - animals that make their homes along the approximately 300 miles of streams there.
And then there are the plants. The monument is located in what botanists refer to as the Canyonlands Vegetative Province, which is considered the richest area in the Intermountain West in terms of plants. The province also contains 50 percent of all rare plants found in Utah.
A remarkable 125 species of plants found in the monument occur only in Utah or the Colorado Plateau, and 11 species are found only in the monument.
The reason for the concentration of rare plants in the monument is twofold, Belnap says. First, the area is geographically located so that it features a mixture of plants from the Great Basin to the north, the Arizona deserts to the south, the Mojave Desert to the west and the Great Plains to the east.
Second, the area was not directly affected by sheets of ice during the Pleistocene, which created a refuge, of sorts, to many plants that survived the climatic turmoil and prompted the evolution of new plant species.
Scientists from throughout the nation are now looking at the plant and animal resources of the monument. Among the many studies being conducted:
- Utah State University researchers are studying native bees in the area. During one recent survey just north of the monument, they identified 316 species of native bees, more than 40 of which were new to science.
- Scientists are looking at how the carbon dioxide from burning underground coal deposits affects vegetation.
- A USGS researcher is looking at the density of grasshopper populations in areas with native grasses vs. areas with non-native grasses as part of his research into efforts to control the spread of non-native grasses.
- BLM and Division of Wildlife Resources researchers are studying 16 different species of bats found in or adjacent to the monument.
- A Colorado researcher is looking at hanging gardens, extremely fragile plant communities that are endangered.
- A Southern Utah University researcher is studying toads and frogs in the monument area.
Belnap said the sheer isolation of the monument makes the region ripe for plant and animal studies. Much of the area is roadless, and many of the roads that are there are seldom traveled. That alone has helped to keep non-native plants and insects - those that tend to hitchhike on cars - out of the area.
These undisturbed habitats help scientists understand the natural variation of ecosystems, things like the role of soil chemistry, soil physical characteristics, rainfall and temperature, "thus providing a baseline against which to measure effects of different land uses on the major vegetation communities," Belnap said.
Given that the monument contains many different and relatively simple ecosystems that occur on several scales, Belnap argues the monument is ideally suited to answering complex ecological questions, including questions related to global climate change.
For example, scientists will be studying pack-rat nests in the monument. Why? Pack-rat nests accumulate over thousands of years, and rarely do pack rats venture very far from home.
When scientists identify the plants in the pack-rat nests, they can reconstruct what the vegetation was like in the past and therefore what the climates were like.
Studying the pack-rat nests "aids us in understanding the effects climate change has had on plants and animals in the past, better enabling us to predict what might happen with future climate change."