For State Wildlife Action Plans
Selection Criteria and Methods
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Selection Criteria and MethodsAll major taxonomic groups were considered for the RSGCN screening process described below: birds, mammals, marine mammals, freshwater and marine fish, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrates. Due to insufficient information, many groups of invertebrates were not included. Instead, for other than tiger beetles and freshwater mussels, only the federally listed or candidate species are included until a more thorough review can be completed for these important taxa. Several invertebrate taxa (odonates and mussels) are the subject of current RCN project status reviews by experts in the region and will result in updated invertebrate lists. The RSGCN screening criteria were applied to all 14 jurisdictions in the Northeast, with the intention that 1) the list is available for voluntary adoption by states in their planning processes including Wildlife Action Plan revisions and 2) the process and results satisfy certain Wildlife Action Plan requirements under Element 1. Additional factors were also considered in updating the process and list. Emerging threats (such as disease), changes in taxonomy, and other important updates are incorporated into the process as well. Species on the RSGCN list are categorized according to conservational need (the percentage of Northeast states that list the species as SGCN in their 2005 SWAP) and regional responsibility (the percentage of the species’ North American range that occurs in the Northeast) (see Figure 1.1). This methodology was adapted from distribution and risk-based prioritizations used for birds (Carter et al. 2000, Wells et al. 2010), reptiles and amphibians (NEPARC 2010), and state agency endangered species lists (Hunt 1997, Joseph et. al. 2008, Wells et. al. 2010). Additional analyses were applied by the NALCC to a composite list of 2,398 species published in Northeast SWAPs (Whitlock 2006) and applications will continue to be developed through collaboration with the Northeast states and NEFWDTC. The process for selecting RSGCN species can be summarized in these steps: 1. State SGCN are compiled into one Composite SGCN List (Whitlock 2006) (2398 species). For this report, the 2005 State Wildlife Action Plans provided state SGCN. In the future, each Northeast state will identify a list of SGCN based on State Level Screening Criteria using the Northeast Lexicon as guidance for additional consistency across the region (Crisfield and NEFWDTC 2013) and then a Composite SGCN List will be generated. 3. The Composite SGCN list is screened for Regional Responsibility. (Regional Responsibility for each species = the number of Northeastern states in which the species is known to occur dived by the number of North American states in which the species is known to occur.) 4. The Composite SGCN list is screened for Regional Conservation Need. (Regional Conservation Need for each species = the number of Northeastern states listing the species as SGCN in 2005 divided by the number of Northeastern states in which the species is known to occur.) 5. Need is based on regional Conservation Need Ranking Criteria (see Figure 1.1). 6. The RSGCN Ranking Criteria are defined and updated in the Lexicon project and/or spatial analysis. 7. The RSGCN List is defined by the RSGCN Selection Threshold Criteria (see Figure 1.1). In total, 355 species or subspecies have more than 50% of their North American range in the Northeast region or are identified by more than half of Northeast states as being species of greatest conservation need in 2005 State Wildlife Action Plans (shown in red in Figure 1.1). . (Species scoring below 50% for both factors were excluded (shown in gray in Figure 1.1)..
Figure 1.1. RSGCN Inclusion Criteria Categorization. N = the number of states listing the species in 2005 State Wildlife Action Plans and R= the percentage of a species’ North American range that occurs in the Northeast. RSGCN ListsNatureServe tracks fish and wildlife diversity of the Northeast including 1,260 species of the seven major taxonomic groups highlighted in this document (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, tiger beetles, and freshwater mussels). Only species that regularly occur in the region are included, and many invertebrate taxa are under review and therefore omitted from this analysis. Of the 1,260 species in these taxa groups, almost 30% (366 species) have been identified by the NEFWDTC as RSGCN based on these species’ conservation status and listing in State Wildlife Action Plans, as well as the percentage of the species’ North American range that occurs in the Northeast (see Table 1.1 for a breakdown of RSGCN by major taxonomic groups and Figure 1.1 for more information on the RSGCN criteria). The invertebrate list is incomplete, and because the RSGCN process continues to evaluate them, only the two major invertebrate groups reviewed through the RSGCN process are included in this analysis. Interestingly, the development of the RSGCN list supports earlier findings that a significant percentage of the Northeast’s wildlife species are in urgent need of dedicated conservation attention, with Stein et al. (2000) and The Heinz Center (2002, 2008) suggesting that approximately 33% of animal species in the United States are at elevated risk for extinction. Table 1.1 RSGCN Species by Major Taxonomic Group.
Major taxonomic groups with the highest percentage of RSGCN in the Northeast include amphibians (40%), reptiles (39%), and tiger beetles (39%) (see Table 1.2). Threats to amphibians and reptiles from disease, water quality impairment, and habitat loss are well known and are discussed further in this document. Tiger beetles are associated with early successional habitats or areas such as beaches that are prone to human disturbance, and thus are at elevated risk from human activities (Knisley and Schultz 1997). Of the 355 RSGCN analyzed in Table 1.2 (analysis excludes the 11 additional federally listed invertebrates not evaluated through the RSGCN process), approximately 16% are considered to be of high regional responsibility (meaning that the northeastern states account for 50% or more of the species’ range) and high regional concern (meaning that more than 50% of the northeastern states identificed the species as SGCN). Tiger beetles had the highest percentage of species ranked high in both regional responsibility and high regional concern (21%). The next closest group, reptiles, had 8% of species in this category. Additionally, almost 30% of the RSGCN are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act as Endangered, Threatened or Candidate species for listing. Mammals had the highest percentage of species with federal listing status, at 27% of the total number of species occurring in the Northeast. The compiled list of all Northeast State Wildlife Action Plans’ Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) (Whitlock 2006) included 87 mammals, 263 birds, 65 reptiles, 73 amphibians, 299 fish, 27 tiger beetles, and 101 freshwater mussel species and subspecies. These numbers represent a significant percentage of the total numbers of Northeastern species in all seven of these taxonomic groups (Table 1.2). The large number of species included in these lists reflects the magnitude of the threats facing fish and wildlife species in the Northeast, as well as the commendable efforts of the individual Northeast states to ensure that their State Wildlife Action Plans were comprehensive in their coverage of species in major taxonomic groups. For vertebrates as a whole, the percentage of species identified as SGCN in one or more of the Northeast State Wildlife Action Plans approaches 70% of the total number of vertebrate species that occur in the Northeast (Table 1.2). The percentages of tiger beetles and freshwater mussels that were identified as SGCN by one or more of the Northeastern states are even higher. For tiger beetles, 27 of the 28 species that occur in the Northeastern states were identified as SGCN in one or more of the original State Wildlife Action Plans for the Northeastern states. For freshwater mussels, 101 of the 111 Northeastern species were listed as SGCN by one or more of the Northeastern states in the original State Wildlife Action Plans. Table 1.2. Regional SGCN: Summary Statistics. Sources: NatureServe and NALCC.
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