Status of the flora and fauna on the Nevada Test Site, 1994: Results of continuing Basic Environmental Monitoring January through December 1994

This is the final progress report of a Department of Energy (DOE), Nevada operations Office (NV), program to monitor the ecology of the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The eight-year Basic Environmental Compliance and Monitoring Program (BECAMP) included meeting goals of understanding the spatial and temporal changes of plants and animals on the NTS, and determining the effects of DOE operations on those plants and animals. Determination of the changes was addressed through monitoring the most common plant and animal species at undisturbed (baseline) plots located in the major NTS valleys and mesas. One plot in Yucca Flat, the site of most nuclear weapons tests, was monitored annually, while other baseline plots were censused on a three- or four-year cycle. Effects of DOE operations were examined at sites of major disturbances, related to both DOE operations and natural disturbance mechanisms, censused on a three-year cycle. This report concentrates on work completed in 1994