This Land, Your Land

MetroPulse magazine in Knoxville takes a look at obstacles facing the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in its 14th year of counting the flora and fauna of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The main problem, of course is money.

Since the start of the study, "the number of known species in the park has nearly doubled, from 9,511 to 17,527, and research has so far identified 910 species new to science," Jesse Fox Mayshark's 3,700-word report says.

But, like what's happening at most institutions these days, money available for the ATBI has fallen off over the years and, in addition, there are fewer people available to do the hands-on work required.

As the Park Service dedicates more of its money to such needs as trail maintenance and saving hemlocks from the woolly adelgid, Discover Life in America, the non-profit organization running the study, has recruited volunteers as it looks for new sources of grants and donations. Among its approaches is allowing donors to name new species for $2,500 to $10,000.

Biologists say there could be 100,000 species inside Great Smoky Mountains, considered the most biodiverse park in the National Parks system. And, once the inventory is complete, continuing to monitor the park's inhabitants is the only way to understand the threats to the park’s many ecosystems.

“The problem that parks and natural areas have all over the world is that we only know a small fraction of the species that occur in each one," says Keith Langdon, a Park Service biologist who is in charge of inventory and monitoring for the Smokies. “In places where we have a mandate to protect everything, we need to know what’s there.”