Conserving Texas Biodiversity: Status, Trends, and Conservation Planning for Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Final Report for: Conserving Texas Biodiversity: Status, Trends, and Conservation Planning for Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need Authors: Adam E. Cohen1, Gary P. Garrett1, Melissa J. Casarez1, Dean A. Hendrickson1, Benjamin J. Labay1, Tomislav Urban2, John Gentle2, Dennis Wylie3, and David Walling2 Affiliations: 1) University of Texas at Austin, Department of Integrative Biology, Biodiversity Center, Texas Natural History Collections (TNHC), Ichthyology; 2) University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC); 3) University of Texas at Austin, Department of Integrative Biology, Center for Computational Biology & Bioinformatics (CCBB) Final Report for: Conserving Texas Biodiversity: Status, Trends, and Conservation Planning for Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need Authors Adam E. Cohen, Gary P. Garrett, Melissa J. Casarez, Dean A. Hendrickson, Benjamin J. Labay, Tomislav Urban, John Gentle, Dennis Wylie, and David Walling Principal Investigator: Dean A. Hendrickson, Curator of Ichthyology, University of Texas Austin, Department of Integrative Biology, Biodiversity Collections (Texas Natural History Collections - TNHC), 10100 Burnet Rd., PRC176EAST/R4000, Austin, Texas 78758-4445; phone: 512-471-9774; email: [email protected] Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Project Leader: Sarah Robertson, River Studies, P.O. Box 1685 or 951 Aquarena Springs Dr., The Rivers Center, San Marcos, TX 78666. Phone 512-754-6844 Funded by: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department through U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service State Wildlife Grant Program, grant TX T-106-1 (CFDA# 15.634) Contract/Project Number: Contract No. 459125 UTA14-001402 Reporting Period: September 1, 2014 through December 31, 2017 Submitted: 3-23-2018 Suggested citation: Cohen, Adam E., Gary P. Garrett, Melissa J. Casarez, Dean A. Hendrickson, Benjamin J. Labay, Tomislav Urban, John Gentle, Dennis Wiley, and David Walling. 2018. “Final Report: ‘Conserving Texas Biodiversity: Status, Trends, and Conservation Planning for Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need’ (Contract No. 459125 UTA14-001402),” Texas Parks and Wildlife Department through U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service State Wildlife Grant Program, grant TX T-106-1 (CFDA# 15.634), January, 362 pages. https://doi.org/10.15781/T26M33M7Z Final Report - Conserving Texas Biodiversity: Status, Trends, and Conservation Planning for Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need Executive Summary The primary aim of this grant was to work with Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD), Texas Advanced Computing Center (University of Texas at Austin), and other collaborators to (1) utilize Fishes of Texas Project (FoTX) data to aid in conservation of Texas fishes, (2) conduct field surveys in under-sampled areas of conservation interest, and (3) further develop the FoTX database and website as a research and management tool. While much of our work focused on Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN), almost everything we did was applied to all species, or affected data for all species. This report documents how FoTX’s specimen-based data were used to produce species distribution models that, in turn, fed into prioritization analyses that led to official creation of Native Fish Conservation Areas (NFCAs) that are now becoming the foundation of aquatic resource conservation prioritization and management in Texas. Our data were also used by TPWD staff to update the Texas Natural Diversity Database, previously depauperate for fish data, and to develop state and global conservation rankings for fishes using NatureServe’s standard methodology. Using FoTX data, we also developed recommendations for updating TPWD’s SGCN list, which will inform conservation in Texas for many years. We also expanded the scope of FoTX beyond Texas, throughout entire drainages, thus reducing biases and analytical complications related to our previous political boundary that lacked a biogeographical basis. We also added many new records from new types of data sources, especially agency databases that complement the museum specimen data to provide a more thorough, updated and unbiased dataset for analyzing temporal and spatial trends in fish faunas. The FoTX website’s checklists were improved in many ways to increase their utility to resource managers, and the site also now accesses occurrence data held in formerly inaccessible, but now digitized and easily accessed documents. We used diverse resources and our occurrence data to determine native ranges for all Texas fishes, and now visualize them in our website's maps, so when viewed alongside occurrence data, users can more easily recognize and explore spatial and temporal trends. We focused another effort at understanding range changes through time, and produced dynamic graphs, that when fully implemented will update automatically as underlying data evolve, depicting and statistically describing locational and general range size changes through time. In addition to database and website work, we were also in the field alongside, and in close coordination with, TPWD staff, focusing on collecting areas previously lacking data, or where there were other conservation-related reasons for sampling. The resultant thousands of new specimens and tissue samples deposited and permanently housed in the University of Texas Biodiversity Collections now provide new, modern data points for ongoing conservation actions. In summary, this project allowed FoTX to continue to grow and diversify, moving away from focusing solely on archiving and improving the data, to applying those data in diverse ways that maximize their value for conservation. The project also greatly increased collaborations between FoTX and TPWD staff, and inspired a Herps of Texas Project templated on the FoTX database schema and website, thus providing an efficient pathway for getting that project to a similar state, with the added advantage of a high level of inter-compatibility of most improvements across both sites. Our hope is that other projects, focusing on other taxa, continue to follow in our footsteps, allowing mutual benefit, and eventually query interfaces that provide users access to high quality data for entire ecological communities. Page | 1 Final Report - Conserving Texas Biodiversity: Status, Trends, and Conservation Planning for Fishes of Greatest Conservation Need Contents Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Activity 1. Coordinate and Facilitate Science and Conservation Actions for Conserving Texas Biodiversity 7 UT, TPWD and Other Collaborations ........................................................................................................ 8 New Products .......................................................................................................................................... 11 Conservation and Monitoring Documents .......................................................................................... 11 List of Imperiled Species ..................................................................................................................... 11 Native Ranges ..................................................................................................................................... 11 Contribution to Natural Diversity Database ....................................................................................... 13 Distributional Analyses, Trends and Other Statistics using NHD Plus Dataset ................................... 13 Website Features .................................................................................................................................... 27 Improved Mapping.............................................................................................................................. 27 Species Accounts (Taxa Pages) ............................................................................................................ 29 Checklists ............................................................................................................................................ 29 Dark Documents (Beta) ....................................................................................................................... 30 Statistics Tab ....................................................................................................................................... 32 General Website Performance and User Experience ......................................................................... 32 Data Growth and Improvement .............................................................................................................. 32 TNHC Specimen Contribution ............................................................................................................. 35 Other Internally Derived or Solicited Data Sources ............................................................................ 35 Specimen Examinations and Data Improvement ................................................................................ 36 Database and Website Technical Details ................................................................................................ 38 Database ............................................................................................................................................