INTRODUCTION 



The puqxDse of this study is to develop a baseline of 

 ecological and bxatanical information on each Research 

 Natural Area (RNA) within the National Wildlife 

 Refuges administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service (USPOC'S) in Montana. The study results 

 provide a reference for refuge managers and 

 researchers, a standard for comparing throughout the 

 Refuge system in the Region, and a contribution to the 

 systematic evaluation of natural areas across the 

 Montana landscape as a whole. This report presents the 

 information on plant associations and rare plants 

 collected at all RNAs over the two years of study, 

 replacing the previous Part 1 report that was submitted 

 as a draft, and which described half of the RNAs. 



Plant associations and species that are threatened, 

 endangered and sensitive are central "elements" of 

 biodiversity catalogued by the Montana Natural 

 Heritage Program statewide. The centralized database 

 and computer-assisted inventories focus on the state's 

 rarest animals and plants, as well as high-quality 

 examples of "natural" plant communities. As part of 

 the ongoing operations, we assess the "relative 

 endangerment of species and natural communities" 

 (Center 1986), a daunting task in eastern Montana 

 with the relative paucity of information on biodiversity 

 features and their location. This was the rationale in 

 proposing an inventory of RNA biological features 

 among National Wildlife Refuges in Montana, 

 emphasizing community types, and also considering 

 threatened, endangered and sensitive plant species. It 

 was designed to contribute to the statewide framework 

 for identifying and filling representative natural areas 

 targets in eastern Montana, to identify the features 

 protected by them, and to increase the potential 

 wildlife management usefulness of existing RNAs for 

 the USPOCS while also contributing to the 

 understanding of ecological and botanical resources. 



From the early years of wildlife management and the 

 emphasis on regulating mortality and productivity for 

 individual species, the scope has broadened to 

 managing species' habitat, habitat processes, and the 

 fauna and flora at large. 



The USFWS adopted an ecosystem approach to fish 

 and wildlife conservation in 1994, defined as 

 "Protecting or restoring the function, structure, and 

 species composition of an ecosystem, recognizing that 

 all components are interrelated" (Martin 1996). 



Ecosystem management and sustainability hinge on the 

 maintenance of plant and animal species diversity as 

 well as natural processes, including disturbance (e. g. 

 fire, grazing), succession, and evolution. Biological 

 processes and biodiversity can be defined at a variety of 

 spatial and temporal scales, including genetic, species, 

 population, community, ecosystem, landscape and 

 regional (Noss 1983). Like the "ecosystem 

 management" term, "natural" has acquired numerous 

 potential meanings. A conceptual point of reference in 

 considering "natural conditior«" is comparison to the 

 ecosystem's condition prior to European settlement, 

 though this is not readily reconstructed in grassland 

 landscapes, complicated by their dynamic nature at 

 several short- and long-term scales. Using a 

 compendium of historic information (Knowles and 

 Knowles 1993) and current information, preliminary 

 deductions and identification of geographic priorities 

 can be developed. On this basis, some of the National 

 Wildlife Refiiges or areas within them offer the last or 

 best vestiges of natural conditions as reference areas for 

 ecosystem management. 



Research Natural Areas are critical to ecosystem 

 management in the following ways: 



Reference and Monitoring Sites: 



The number of examples of natural ecosystems that 

 remain is finite and shrinking as landscapes are altered 

 and degraded (Noss 1987). It is judicious to manage 

 some ecosystems for their existing natural conditions to 

 reduce the risks associated with our limited knowledge 

 of ecosystem functions and to insure ecosystem 

 diversity, health, and sustainability. 



Many natural resource management activities can be 

 conceived of as experiments; their outcome, including 

 changes in vegetation, animal populations, soils quality, 

 plant susceptibility to insect and disease vectors, and 

 changes in future productivity are, at best, incompletely 

 understood (Franklin 1992). As such, reference points 

 are needed to evaluate the experiment's success. 

 Regardless of the entity monitored, small mammal 

 demography, breeding bird success, neotropical migrant 

 birds, health of endangered species populations, site 

 productivity, or impacts of road density on ungulate 

 distribution, reference points are essential. The 

 reference or benchmark function is one of the principal 

 merits of RNAs and similar areas for management and 

 environmental analysis. The availability of RNAs as 



