Wildlife Action Plan 2015 Revision Process White Paper
type, especially the Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Gopher Frog. Conversely, some species have adapted and thrive in urban/suburban settings (e.g., Raccoon, Gray Squirrel) and are expanding. Another example is the frequent availability of early successional habitat asso- ciated with harvest rotations on timber plantations. Tis land-use practice may allow larger populations of Prairie Warblers to occur in these areas than would have occurred histori- cally with natural landscapes.
Te answer scale is adopted from the NatureServe evaluation tool (NatureServe 2012a) . Scores are assigned based on the estimated % change in area occupied by the species.
What is the estimated % change in area occupied by the species?
(a) Decrease of >90%
(b) Decrease of 80%–90%
(c) Decrease of 70%–80%
(d) Decrease of 50%–70%
(e) Decrease of 30%–50%
(f) Decrease of 10%–30%
(g) Relatively Stable (≤10% increase or decrease)
(h) Increasing (≥10% increase)
North Carolina Status Metrics 5 through 9 focus on a species’ status in North Carolina.
5. Population Size in North Carolina. Species that become rare locally may serve as early warnings for declines over broader areas that are likely to occur for numerous reasons, including threatened habitats or genetic decline (Wells et al. 2010) . In addition, North Carolina has numerous endemic species and some have single or small populations found only in discrete locations. Endemic species may have low reproductive potential that will contrib- ute to small populations (Kunin and Gaston 1998) . Burlakova et al. (2011) note that there is typ- ically a high rate of endemism associated with freshwater habitats because many species have evolved within small geographic ranges (reviewed in Strayer and Dudgeon 2010) .
Tere are some species (e.g., birds, anadromous fsh) with diferent breeding and non- breeding populations in North Carolina or the populations may be short-term transients
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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