Ministry of Natural Resources Natural Heritage Information Centre Newsletter 2014 Volume 19 Science and Research Branch Newsletter Biodiversity and Monitoring Section Transformation brings new staff to the NHIC Contents As a result of the Ministry of Natural Resources’s (MNR) transformation Transformation brings new of Science and Information Resources Division, the Natural Heritage and staff to the NHIC .......................... 1 Information Centre (NHIC) has been fortunate to pick up four key staff from Using the Vegetation the former Southern Science and Information Section. Sampling Protocol (VSP) to monitor natural cover in David Bradley joins the NHIC and brings his experiences and skills as the Lake Simcoe watershed ........ 2 an Ecological Land Classification (ELC) Botanist to our team. David has helped to sample and analyze 1,144 research plots in site regions 6E and Bryophyte research at 7E and over 5,000 Vegetation Sampling Protocol (VSP) vegetation plots. the NHIC ...................................... 4 Since coming to the NHIC, David has been busy upgrading the bryophyte Citizen scientists contribute herbarium and contributing to the bryophyte database. This year, David valuable information to the will be collecting and identifying mosses and liverworts from across NHIC ............................................ 6 Ontario while he continues to support the VSP in southern Ontario. Need information? ...................... 6 Danijela Puric-Mladenovic joins the NHIC and brings her Associate Natural Heritage inventories Professor status with the University of Toronto, Faculty of Forestry. Danijela in the Ring of Fire ........................ 7 developed the Vegetation Sampling Protocol for southern Ontario and her Conservation of Great work is focused on green systems (natural heritage systems) design and Lakes arctic-alpine plant planning; application of conservation and landscape planning to settled communities COA project..........12 landscapes; spatial and vegetation analysis; predictive modeling and mapping of present, past, and future vegetation and species distributions; Liber Ero post-doctoral students mentored at NHIC ........13 developing broad-scale sampling and vegetation inventory and monitoring protocols; and research related to urban forestry and urban forest planning. NHIC assists with COSEWIC This year, Danijela will be supporting natural heritage inventory and status reports on rare snail monitoring with VSP in the Lake Simcoe watershed and providing science species .......................................14 support for natural heritage system planning across Ontario. NHIC fieldwork in Polar Bear Provincial Park ................... 15 Dawn Burke joins the NHIC from her home base in London, Ontario as our new Carolinian Ecologist. NHIC newsletter aficionados may remember Citizen science spotlight: Dawn from our spring 1999 Volume 5 edition, when the NHIC was six years Short-tailed shrew ......................16 old. Dawn is currently on leave from the MNR and we all hope to have her Citizen science spotlight: back in her position and working with her NHIC colleagues in the not too Mantisfly .....................................16 distant future. Best wishes Dawn. NHIC focuses on Wildlife David Tellier has also joined the NHIC from the former Southern Science Concentration Areas ..................17 and Information Section where he was working on natural heritage system Citizen science spotlight: analysis. David is continuing to use and develop his GIS analysis and Eastern cicada killer .................. 18 system planning skills as an NHIC Biodiversity Information Biologist. Citizen science spotlight: All of us at the NHIC are pleased to welcome these new colleagues, and we Snowy owl ................................. 18 look forward to many excellent adventures together. Rare plant community Jim Mackenzie digitization at the NHIC ..............19 © Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2014 Science and Research Branch Natural Heritage Information Centre NHIC Newsletter 2014 Volume 19 2 Using the Vegetation Sampling indirect (e.g. stressed vegetation is more susceptible to Protocol (VSP) to monitor natural cover insects and pathogens) impacts. By using quantitative measures to monitor vegetation it is possible to define when in the Lake Simcoe watershed and where these impacts are occurring, and determine if Natural cover on settled landscapes across Ontario has they are caused by local or large-scale effects (e.g. climate been shaped by centuries of human and environmental change), and to what extent, and how they impact other influences. For decades now, natural resource ecological functions and processes in the watershed. management and conservation have relied on relatively Past and current natural cover monitoring efforts have simple vegetation metrics such as percent natural cover, been opportunistic, program specific, localized and patch size, and shape to guide planning and policy. In often not extensive enough to support landscape-scale order to understand the ecological impact of large-scale applications and policy needs. As a result of this, and vegetation changes over time and across landscapes, due to different anthropogenic and environmental standard measures of composition and structure need to pressures on natural cover, a multipurpose, integrative be captured and reported. The composition and structure and landscape-scale vegetation monitoring approach of natural vegetation, with its many known direct and is needed in the Lake Simcoe watershed and other indirect impacts on ecological function and processes, is settled areas in Ontario. Monitoring is also important key to our understanding of ecological sustainability and for establishing a baseline condition, enabling state accounting of environmental goods and services. of the resources reporting across different scales, and It is expected that population increase, land development, measuring the effectiveness of the program and policy invasive species, and climate change pressures will put across local site and landscape scales. additional stresses on already altered natural heritage and Among the land development related policies in Ontario vegetation across Ontario’s landscapes. As a result, there such as the Provincial Policy Statement, Oak Ridges Moraine is a growing need to preserve and improve the state of the Conservation Plan, Niagara Escarpment Plan, Greenbelt Plan natural vegetation: restoring it where it is underrepresented and The Lake Simcoe Protection Plan (LSPP), the LSPP is and/or ecologically impaired. Incorporating specific unique in its monitoring requirements. Policy 6.50-M of vegetation targets into integrated landscape planning, the LSPP explicitly requires the establishment of a natural- conservation, and the use of adaptive management cover monitoring program for the watershed. In practices need to become the norm to ensure biodiversity addition, the LSPP is the first plan that clearly identifies protection and a steady flow of ecological goods and “Achieve(ing) a minimum 40 percent high quality natural services. The strength and success of these efforts also vegetative cover in the watershed” as a target. The requirement depend on the amount, health, and quality of the existing for high quality implies that mapping areas of natural cover natural vegetation. A sufficient amount of diverse and isn’t enough, and that it is necessary to have information healthy natural cover is a cost effective, long-term on vegetation composition and structure, and to know solution to sustain landscapes and improve and maintain the existing and desired state of natural cover. many ecological functions and processes. The LSPP policy requirements provide an opportunity Similar to the rest of southern Ontario, the existing natural to establish, for the first time in Ontario, a natural-cover vegetation of the Lake Simcoe watershed is critical for monitoring program across a landscape. As a result, in the maintaining ecosystem functions and processes, and is Lake Simcoe watershed, vegetation cover, composition, exposed to many biotic, abiotic, and anthropogenic and structure will be captured with landscape and site- stresses. For example, invasive plants change forest level monitoring efforts. When a sufficient number of site- structure and composition by taking over native habitats level observations become available, it will be possible and suppressing natural vegetation and regeneration. to correlate site and landscape monitoring data (spatial Land development, urbanization, and habitat information such as woodland mapping and remote fragmentation are some of the direct human pressures that sensing). This will enable extrapolating and mapping of also have an impact on vegetation condition. In addition, site-level information across the entire watershed. Site- natural cover is vulnerable to climate change and its direct level monitoring for the Lake Simcoe watershed will be (drought, late spring or early fall frosts, ice rain) and accomplished using a network of Vegetation Sampling Science and Research Branch Natural Heritage Information Centre NHIC Newsletter 2014 Volume 19 3 Protocol (VSP) geo-referenced plots that span the entire of the LSPP as well as other vegetation management area. The Ministry of Natural Resources, Science and applications. The pilot project derived and tested a set Research Branch is developing and spearheading this of monitoring criteria that were readily obtainable from VSP monitoring application, in