Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Database Development Coefficient of Conservatism Database Development for Wetland Plants Occurring in the Southeastern United States By Kristie Gianopulos, M.S. North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources Division of Water Resources: Wetlands Branch Supported by EPA Region IV Wetland Program Development Grant #CD 96488511-0 Contributing Botanists: Quinton “Guy” Anglin, Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection Julian Campbell, Bluegrass Woodland Restoration Center S. Lee Echols, North American Land Trust L. Dwayne Estes, Austin Peay State University Derick Poindexter, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill Milo Pyne, NatureServe Michael Schafale, North Carolina Natural Heritage Program Al Schotz, Alabama Natural Heritage Program Ed Schwartzman, North Carolina Natural Heritage Program Bruce Sorrie, North Carolina Natural Heritage Program Dan Spaulding, Anniston Museum of Natural History Bob Upcavage, University of South Florida & Environmental Consultants, LLC. Alan Weakley, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill Deborah White, Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission Wendy Zomlefer, University of Georgia Citation for this document: Gianopulos, K. 2014. Coefficient of Conservatism Database Development for Wetland Plants Occurring in the Southeast United States. North Carolina Dept. of Environment & Natural Resources, Division of Water Resources: Wetlands Branch. Report to the EPA, Region 4. Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Database Development Table of Contents LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................. 2 LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................................... 3 LIST OF SURVEYS ............................................................................................................................ 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................ 4 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 6 METHODS ...................................................................................................................................... 7 RESULTS ....................................................................................................................................... 14 CONCLUSIONS.............................................................................................................................. 28 LITERATURE CITED ....................................................................................................................... 31 APPENDIX A Table A-1 ....................................................................................................................... A-1 Table A-2 ....................................................................................................................... A-3 Table A-3 ....................................................................................................................... A-4 Survey A-1 ..................................................................................................................... A-5 Survey A-2 ................................................................................................................... A-11 Survey A-3 ................................................................................................................... A-12 APPENDIX B Table B-1.........................................................................................................................B-1 1 Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Database Development List of Figures Figure 1. Project area and ecoregions for Southeast wetland plant Coefficient of Conservatism database development project. Figure 2. Wetland/upland status of Southeastern taxa based on the 2012 National Wetland Plant List. Figure 3. Wetland/upland status of native taxa in the 2012 National Wetland Plant List for Southeastern flora. Figure 4. Wetland/upland status of adventive and non-native taxa in the 2012 National Wetland Plant List for Southeastern flora. Figure 5. Distribution of number of botanists assigning/contributing to a given C-value within an ecoregion (native taxa only). Figure 6. Distribution of the 91 undetermined/unassigned C-values by ecoregion. Figure 7. Difference in individual scores assigned for any given taxon and ecoregion. Figure 8. Distribution of range of C-values across ecoregions for taxa occurring in 2-5 ecoregions. Figure 9. Number of ecoregions in which wetland taxa occur in the Southeast. Figure 10. Ecoregional occurrence of wetland taxa in the Southeast. Figure 11. Growth form and native status of Southeastern wetland flora. Figure 12. Distribution of overall average C-values for the Southeast region wetland flora, native and non-native. Figure 13. Distribution of overall average C-values for the Mid-Atlantic region wetland flora (FAC or wetter), native and non-native (Chamberlain and Ingram 2012). Figure 14. Distribution of average C-values for annual wetland taxa occurring in the Southeast. Figure 15. Distribution of average C-values for biennial and perennial wetland taxa occurring in the Southeast. Figure 16. Distribution of C-values for wetland plants in the Southern Coastal Plain ecoregion. Figure 17. Distribution of C-values for wetland plants in the Coastal Plain ecoregion. Figure 18. Distribution of C-values for wetland plants in the Piedmont ecoregion. Figure 19. Distribution of C-values for wetland plants in the Mountains ecoregion. Figure 20. Distribution of C-values for wetland plants in the Interior Low Plateau ecoregion. 2 Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Database Development List of Tables Table 1. P-values from Wilcoxon signed ranks tests on C-value distributions of all five ecoregions. Asterisks denote significant differences after Holm-Bonferonni correction. Table A-1. Comparison of methods used to assign Coefficient of Conservatism values in the United States. Table A-2. Source list for reference C-values included in the scoring database provided to botanists. Table A-3. List of participants in the Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Panel. Table B-1. Coefficient of Conservatism Values for Wetland Plants Occurring in the Southeastern United States List of Surveys Survey A-1. Coefficient of Conservatism Methods Survey Results Survey A-2. Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Assignment: Botanist Questionnaire Survey A-3. Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Assignment: Post-Meeting Survey 3 Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Database Development List of Abbreviations C-value - Coefficient of Conservatism value, a number from 0-10 rating the fidelity of a plant species to pristine habitat CP - Coastal Plain DWR - Division of Water Resources (within NCDENR) EPA - Environmental Protection Agency FQI - Floristic Quality Index NCDENR - North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources NRCS - Natural Resource Conservation Service NWPL - National Wetland Plant List Pdmnt - Piedmont SCP - Southern Coastal Plain SD/St.Dev. - Standard Deviation USDA - United States Department of Agriculture Wetness Classifications (based on the National Wetland Category for Region 3 of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (Reed, 1988): FAC - Facultative Plant Species (Equally likely to occur in wetlands or non-wetlands) FACU - Facultative Upland Plant Species (Occasionally occurs in wetlands, but usually occurs in non-wetlands) FACW - Facultative Wetland Plant Species (Usually occurs in wetlands, but occasionally found in non-wetlands) OBL - Obligate Wetland Plant Species (Occurs almost always in wetlands under natural conditions) UPL - Upland Plant Species (Occurs almost never in wetlands under natural conditions) 4 Southeast Wetland Plant Coefficient of Conservatism Database Development ABSTRACT Floristic quality assessment is a recognized technique for assessing habitat quality of wetland sites. The Floristic Quality Index (FQI), the most widely used metric in floristic quality assessment for wetland and terrestrial ecosystems, employs a measure of conservatism (Coefficient of Conservatism) along with richness of a plant community to derive an estimate of habitat quality (Wilhelm & Ladd 1988, Ladd 1993, Taft et al. 1997, Matthews 2003, Lopez & Fennessy 2002). Coefficient of Conservatism values (C- values)(ranging from 0 to 10) have hitherto been available only for selected parts of the Southeast, but a comprehensive wetland database of these values has never been developed for much of the Southeast. This project undertook the task of assembling 15 expert botanists to create a large database of C-values for wetland plant taxa occurring across the Southeast. The resulting database includes C-values for 2,523 wetland taxa, across five separate Southeast ecoregions, totaling over 7,100 C-values available for floristic quality assessment. A very small portion (1%) of wetland plant C-values remains unassigned, because the botanist panel had insufficient experience with particular taxa to confidently assign C- values.