Data are also collected from weather stations in associated plots and from grids and stations where the productivity of small mammals and birds is sampled. National Park Service staff conducted field operations in the Rock Creek watershed and on glaciers and continued the development of protocols for the monitoring of soils and benthic macroinverbrates. Park staff also began to organize, verify, and validate information about water chemistry, hydrology, and vegetation. Data from the inventories will permit stratification of watersheds throughout the park. The first of three clusters was established in 1994 when monitoring in the Great Plains Prairie Cluster was funded.
Monitoring is conducted in a cluster of six small prairie park units in the Midwest.
Wilson's Creek National Battlefield in southwestern Missouri is the leading park for the cluster. The overall goals of the monitoring are the assessment of the effectiveness of resource management and the detection of degradation from external threats. Monitoring in the Great Plains Cluster is still in the initial phase of protocol design and development and is therefore primarily funded and staffed by the Biological Resources Division of the US Geological Survey. Protocols are currently developed for monitoring macroinvertebrates of prairie streams, weather and local climate, prairie plant communities, rare plants, prairie butterflies, and grassland birds. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which encompasses approximately 550,000 acres in the states of Tennessee and North Carolina, became a prototype in 1992.