expanding short-term trend. The relatively high recruitment 

 rates at the Horse Prairie site are more than exceeded by the 

 higher mortality rates. 



The Badger Pass monitoring site lies completely within an 

 exclosure, and may help in formulating hypotheses about the 

 impact of grazing and browsing, but it was not set up as a 

 controlled management response study. The exclosure restricts 

 access by livestock, but not to wildlife. There are no clear 

 patterns of difference between the browse levels between the 

 Badger Pass exclosure site and the Horse Prairie site. The 

 heaviest levels of browsing on Penstemon lerohiensis to date took 

 place within the exclosure in 1992. 



Related monitoring projects for Penstemon lemhiensis are underway 

 on the Beaverhead National Forest and public lands in Idaho. It 

 is recommended that monitoring data between studies be compiled 

 at the culmination of demographic monitoring, and an updated 

 statewide or rangewide status report be prepared. 



It has been suggested in earlier studies and reports that 

 Penstemon lemhiensis population numbers may be limited by 

 availability of bare ground surface for recruitment (Ramstetter 

 1983, Shelly 1987, Schassberger 1990, Shelly 1990), and that 

 oscillations in population numbers may make the many small-sized 

 populations of Penstemon lemhiensis particularly vulnerable to 

 extinction (Shelly 1990) . 



Therefore it is recommended that site groundcover data and nearby 

 meteorological data be collected for all Penstemon lemhiensis 

 monitoring sites. Monitoring of Penstemon lemhiensis on BLM 

 lands will be pursued accordingly in 1993. 



In summary, the present data provide baseline for extended 

 monitoring. They are not in and of themselves sufficient to draw 

 species biology conclusions, but by observing the individual 

 plants and the changes in population structure over several years 

 they will provide a valid basis for assessing the demographic 

 characteristics and viability of Penstemon lemhiensis at the two 

 monitoring sites. 



