Rapid Assessment Metrics to Enhance Wildlife Habitat and Biodiversity Within Southern Open Pine Ecosystems
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Rapid Assessment Metrics to Enhance Wildlife Habitat and Biodiversity within Southern Open Pine Ecosystems Carl Nordman, Rickie White, Randy Wilson, Clay Ware, Catherine Rideout, Milo Pyne, Chuck Hunter Version 1.0 Date of current draft: 5-12-2016 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Executive summary ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Purpose and Use of this Document .......................................................................................................... 7 Study Area / Scope and Scale of Project ................................................................................................... 8 Priority Species ........................................................................................................................................ 10 Summary information for Priority Wildlife Species ................................................................................ 12 Methods ...................................................................................................................................................... 16 Priority Species ........................................................................................................................................ 16 Definition of Southern Open Pine ........................................................................................................... 16 Southern Open Pine Groupings .............................................................................................................. 17 Review of Literature and Previous Studies ............................................................................................. 18 Stakeholder and Expert Meetings to Refine Metrics .............................................................................. 19 External Review of Metrics ..................................................................................................................... 23 Results ......................................................................................................................................................... 24 Summary Descriptions of Open Pine Habitat Groupings ........................................................................ 24 Dry & Mesic Longleaf Pine Woodlands ............................................................................................... 25 Mesic Longleaf Pine Flatwoods ........................................................................................................... 25 Wet Longleaf & Slash Pine Flatwoods & Savannas ............................................................................. 25 Xeric Longleaf Pine Barrens ................................................................................................................ 26 Dry & Mesic Highlands Pine Woodlands ............................................................................................. 26 Dry & Mesic Hilly Pine Woodlands ...................................................................................................... 26 Upper Coastal Plain Pine Flatwoods ................................................................................................... 26 Summaries of Metrics by Habitat Grouping ........................................................................................... 26 Discussion/Summary ................................................................................................................................... 35 References Cited ......................................................................................................................................... 37 Appendices .................................................................................................................................................. 42 Appendix A. Key to Southern Open Pine Habitat Groupings .................................................................. 43 Key to Open Pine Groupings ............................................................................................................... 44 Notes on Some Ambiguous or Confusing Habitats ............................................................................. 48 Appendix B. Full Descriptions of Southern Open Pine Groupings .......................................................... 50 Dry & Mesic Longleaf Pine Woodlands ............................................................................................... 50 Mesic Longleaf Pine Flatwoods ........................................................................................................... 51 2 Wet Longleaf & Slash Pine Flatwoods & Savannas ............................................................................. 51 Xeric Longleaf Pine Barrens ................................................................................................................ 52 Dry & Mesic Highlands Pine Woodlands ............................................................................................. 53 Dry & Mesic Hilly Pine Woodlands ...................................................................................................... 54 Upper Coastal Plain Pine Flatwoods ................................................................................................... 54 Appendix C. Full Descriptions of all Metrics. .......................................................................................... 56 Canopy Southern Yellow Pine Basal Area ........................................................................................... 57 Southern Yellow Pine Canopy Cover ................................................................................................... 63 Southern Yellow Pine Stand Age Structure ......................................................................................... 69 Canopy Hardwood Basal Area ............................................................................................................. 72 Stand Density Index ............................................................................................................................ 77 Midstory Fire Tolerant Hardwood Cover ............................................................................................ 82 Midstory Overall Cover ....................................................................................................................... 86 Short Shrub (<3 feet tall) Cover and Tall Shrub (3-10 feet tall) Cover ................................................ 89 Overall Native Herbaceous Ground Cover (foliar cover) .................................................................... 94 Longleaf Pine Regeneration ................................................................................................................ 97 Native Warm Season Grass Cover....................................................................................................... 99 Invasive Plant Presence/Distribution ................................................................................................ 104 Appendix D. Participant list (including affiliations) for Meetings and Review ..................................... 107 Appendix E: Associations and Alliances of the Southern Open Pine Groupings................................... 108 Appendix F: Representative Species Pool for Coastal Plain Open Pine Woodland and Savanna (GCPO LCC), with Priority Species in bold ........................................................................................................ 114 Appendix G: Priority Species of Open Pine Woodlands of the GCPO LCC ............................................ 115 3 Acknowledgements Our project core team (Chuck Hunter, Carl Nordman, Milo Pyne, Catherine Rideout, Clay Ware, Rickie White, and Randy Wilson) is indebted to the many institutions and individuals who contributed to our work or who made our work possible through previously published research. In particular, we recognize that this project could not have been accomplished without the financial support of the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative and their dedicated staff, past and present. In particular, John Tirpak (previous Science Coordinator of the LCC) and Todd Jones-Farrand (current Science Coordinator) organized the technical advisory team that oversaw our work and checked in with us as needed to ensure that the project ran smoothly. We appreciate the effort and input of the technical advisory team members for our project, including Mike Conner, Jeffrey Gleason, Jane Fitzgerald, Tom Foti, Tim Fotinos, Anne Mini, and Rua Mordecai. We further appreciate the in-kind support of the East Gulf Coastal Plain Joint Venture, the Mississippi Migratory Bird Field Office, and the Longleaf Pine Recovery Team of USFWS. Much of the work featured here was based on or influenced by previous projects. In 2006, with support from Office Depot, NatureServe conducted literature review and rapid assessment metric development for certain ecological systems in the Alabama and Mississippi (NatureServe 2006). The Southern Region of the US Forest Service worked closely with NatureServe to produce an interim report on longleaf