Natural Resource Year in Review—2003, A portrait of the year in natural resource stewardship and science in the National Park System, ISSN 1544-5437
Chapter 0 — Front Matter
Chapter 1— Transforming the National Park System
Chapter 2 — The New Face of Professional Resource Management
Chapter 3 — Inventory and Monitoring Charges Ahead
Chapter 4 - Frontiers for Science and Natural Resource Education
Chapter 5 — Preventing Natural Resource Impairment
Chapter 6 — Restoration
Chapter 7 — Conserving Threatened and Endangered Species
Chapter 8 — Cooperative Conservation
Chapter 9 — Looking Ahead
Chapters
Frontiers for Science and Natural Resource Education
Introduction
New ATBI species discoveries top 3,000 at Great Smokies
Rocky intertidal monitoring partnerships aid management at Cabrillo National Monument
Award-winner: Dr. David Cole a pioneer in the field of recreation ecology research
Invertebrate biodiversity in hemlock forest studied
Virgin Islands monuments move forward
Natural Resource Education: National park research engages future scientists participating in JASON XIV: From Shore to Sea
Distance learning and a prescribed burn at Homestead National Monument of America
Improving the “Geology Talk”
New discoveries on Yellowstone Lake’s floor
Complete Article List
Utilities Home
Current Issue PDF's
Who's Involved
Archive of Natural Resource Year in Review
Search
Contact Year in Review

Frontiers for Science and Natural Resource Education
“We can live more fully, more pleasantly, more productively, if we try to understand the world of nature.”—Marston Bates, The Forest and the Sea
Glowworm, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina

A relatively uncommon family of beetles, glowworms (Phengodes sp.) are closely related to fireflies. Adult females are wingless, luminescent, and look like larvae. This specimen, a male, was collected in Great Smoky Mountains National Park as part of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory and has been helpful in understanding the distribution of this insect group.

In a world in which the sprawl of development for human habitation is overwhelming the biologically diverse landscape, the national parks are oases for nature where wildlife and plant life can thrive and the physical features of the land, air, and waters can be appreciated. The parks are opportunities waiting for scientists to come and study. The National Park Service is striving to make the parks more accessible to scientists through the Natural Resource Challenge, and scientific research and collecting permit numbers are on the rise. As a result, species new to science are coming to light, the ranges of known species are being redrawn, and aspects of the physical landscape that are not easily accessible are now being examined. New technology is allowing researchers not only to investigate nature, but also to share information with the public in ways that were never before possible, as the stories in this chapter demonstrate.
NPS Fact
The National Park Service began tracking the number of new scientific research and collecting permits issued annually throughout the National Park System in 2001 when 2,231 such permits were issued.* This number increased to 2,367 in calendar year 2002 and 2,501 in 2003.

*Permits are required for scientific research activities that involve natural resource or social science fieldwork and specimen collecting of biological, geological, and paleontological resources. Activities such as birding and noncommercial photography are not regulated by permit; some official research and collecting conducted by NPS staff require a permit. Other permit procedures apply to scientific activities pertaining solely to cultural resources.
Frontiers for Science and Natural Resource Education, Introduction
next Download Chapter PDF
Nature Net NPS.gov privacy e-mail editor

last updated 4/13/2004
National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, Natural Resource Program Center, Natural Resource Information Division
Get Acrobat Reader Download PDF