Information for Scientists

Interested in doing biological research in Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Want to contribute to the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory? Looking for ATBI data? Interested in a small grant from DLiA? Here is a collection of useful information.

Conducting research in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Research topics

Need a topic? We need help and may have funding opportunities for work on these priority taxa. GSMNP also maintains a running list of research questions they’d love for you to answer.

Research permits

Scientific research permits are required to conduct research in GSMNP. Find out about the permitting and reporting process here and at the NPS Research Permit and Report System (RPRS).

View a list of active permits in the park here.

Parking fees and permits

Beginning March 1, 2023, any vehicle parking for more than 15 minutes within park boundaries will need to display a valid parking tag. Per the park’s parking fee information page:

“National Park Service regulations allow permitted researchers to be exempt from paying for a parking tag while they are engaged in their permitted research activities. Perspective researchers will receive parking tag placards with their permit when it is issued. Researchers must inform the research coordinator of the minimum number of vehicles that will be needed for their work at any one time and will be issued that many placards. Placards must be printed in color and be visible through the front windshield while the vehicle is parked. Placards will be renewed annually for the duration of the issued research permit. As with any other parking tag, the placards issued to permitted researchers do not authorize parking outside of designated parking areas nor guarantee a parking space at any specific location within the Park; researchers must plan their schedules to arrive at popular locations outside of the peak visitation times.”

This is a new program and there may be changes. Visit the parking fee information page (go.nps.gov/GRSMfees) or contact the park’s research coordinator, Paul Super, for the most up-to-date information.

Lodging and workspace

The Appalachian Highland Science and Learning Center near Maggie Valley, NC includes lodging and workspace for visiting researchers. Find out more here.

The Twin Creeks Science and Education Center near Gatlinburg, TN includes lab- and workspace for visiting scientists and houses the GSMNP natural history collection. Find out more about this facility here.

Housing and facilities may also be available in other parts of the park to permitted researchers. Contact Paul Super, GSMNP Research Coordinator, for more information.

Other options outside of the park:

University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Biology Field Station is located in Gatlinburg, TN (minutes from the Greenbrier, GSMNP). It includes lodging plus research and teaching facilities. Information here.

Western Carolina University’s Highlands Biological Station in Highlands, NC is approximately one hour from GSMNP and has lodging and other facilities. Find out more here.

Access to natural history collections

The park’s natural history collection is housed at Twin Creeks Science and Education Center. The extensive collection includes plants, birds, insects, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, lichens, minerals, tree cores and more. Much of this material has been databased. Additional material from GSMNP is held in other regional institutions. Find out more about holdings and getting access to the collections here. The herbarium has been digitized and can be viewed here.

ATBI data and other Smokies-related resources

Note: Great Smoky Mountains National Park can be abbreviated as GSMNP (as often used by the public) or GRSM (as used by the federal government). Here, they are used interchangeably.

Species lists

Visitor-oriented species lists on the GRSM website (some are more up-to-date than others):

Research-focused lists maintained by Park staff and/or DLiA:

  • Plant species checklist – relatively up to date; maintained by GSMNP forest ecologist via NPSpecies
  • Endemic species checklist (PDF) for GSMNP & Southern Appalachians (updated July 2023)
  • Legally/Operationally Sensitive Species checklist
  • NPSpecies is an NPS-wide repository for biodiversity data. GRSM deposits data from permitted studies, as well as other ATBI-related data from researchers, DLiA, park staff, and other sources, into NPSpecies, comprising roughly 400-500K observation records. These data are summarized in the public-facing side of NPSpecies, while the complete dataset may be obtained from the GSMNP Data Manager. Search “GRSM” in the Park Species List feature for a some-what complete species checklist.
  • Smokies ATBI checklists – GSMNP and DLiA staff maintain a separate set of Excel spreadsheets representing the most up-to-date species checklists for each taxonomic group documented in the park. These are used, for example, to calculate the Smokies Species Tally. We hope to make these checklists publicly available soon, but for now you can request the current list (roughly divided into the same categories as the Tally) by emailing Will Kuhn (will@dlia.org).

Other biodiversity data

  • Smokies Species Tally – a by-the-numbers summary of known GSMNP species richness by taxa
  • Raw ATBI data – NPS manages the database of species records for GSMNP. Please contact GSMNP Research Coordinator Paul Super (paul_super@nps.gov) for access to these data. Note: some data contain sensitive records that may require a permit for access.
  • Digitized GSMNP herbarium – the herbarium was recently digitized as part of the Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections NSF-funded project. Project profile here.
  • Park observations in iNaturalist – includes 180K+ observations of 6K+ species across GSMNP
  • Images of many insects from the park collection are available on NPGallery (search by genus or species OR search “grsm”, then click Filter Results and select “Monitoring” and “Great Smoky Mountains National Park” to view all)

Maps & GIS

NEON data

Reports, publications, datasets, etc.

  • ATBI-related data in NPS DataStore – includes ~430 journal articles, books, conference papers, dissertations, theses, maps, and unpublished reports relating to the Smokies ATBI. Many items have public, downloadable files associated with them
  • DataStore – the general, searchable repository for data products from GSMNP (=GRSM) and the rest of the NPS system

Road conditions, weather, & webcams

Contacts

  • DLiA Director of Science and Research – Will Kuhn (will@dlia.org) – maintains this page
  • DLiA full staff list
  • GSMNP Research Coordinator – Paul Super (paul_super@nps.gov) – handles research permits
  • GSMNP Data Manager – position currently vacant
  • GSMNP Entomologist and DLiA Liaison – Becky Nichols
  • GSMNP Collections Manager – Baird Todd
  • NIMBioS (National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis)

DLiA mini-grants program

We periodically fund small grants for specific work in the park and/or related to the Smokies ATBI. Please note, funding is not always available and is targeted for specific research (see below).

  • Grants are typically $1,000 – $3,000
  • Funding is subject to availability and will be allocated by current priority and task size

Funding focus:

  • We need specialists to identify existing insect/arthropod samples (some of these are marked “BACKLOG” here)
  • We need researchers to carry out biodiversity survey work on specific taxa that GSMNP considers understudied in the park (marked “UNDERSTUDIED” here)

Who is eligible for grant funding?

  • Taxonomic specialists
  • Organismal biologists
  • Other qualified professionals or individuals with demonstrable related experience

Interested in helping? If you meet the conditions above, please fill out >>THIS FORM<< to tell us more about yourself and your interests. You can also email Will Kuhn (will@dlia.org) if you have questions. If there’s a biodiversity project in the Smokies that you’re really interested in doing but that’s not exactly covered here, let us know. Even if we can’t grant you funding directly, we may be able to work with you to get grant funding.