3.4 Crayfshes
ǐ Eastern Atlantic Painted Bunting Working Group
ǐ American Oystercatcher Business Plan
ǐ Piping Plover Recovery Plan
ǐ Wood Stork Recovery Plan
ǐ South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative
ǐ Others as appropriate
ǐ NC Waterbird Management Committee and Plan
ǐ USFWS Integrated Waterbird Management and Monitoring Program
ǐ Southern Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative
ǐ Southern Wings program of AFWA
• Continue eforts to improve coordination, collaboration, cooperation between biol- ogists and researchers within the state and regionally through meetings, webinars, newsletters, and other electronic media (NC Partners in Flight Initiative). Continue to support and contribute data to the Eastern Avian Data Center (data.pointblue.org/part- ners/eadc), an initiative centered on greater data sharing.
3.4 Crayfshes 3.4.1 Introduction
Crayfshes, commonly referred to as crawfsh or crawdads, are native to every continent except Africa and Antarctica and inhabit a wide diversity of habitats that range from rivers, lakes, streams, and wetlands, to caves, hillside seeps and springs, roadside ditches, and underground burrows in backyards (Taylor and Schuster 2004; Reynolds and Souty-Grosset 2012) . North American crayfshes are classifed into two taxonomic families (Astacidae, Cambaridae) that contain nearly 390 native species (Simmons and Fraley 2010) . Approximately 98% of all species native to North American are classifed as cambarids and the majority of this diversity (90%) occurs east of the Rocky Mountains, primarily in the southeastern United States (Pfieger 1996; Taylor and Schuster 2004) making the southeastern United States home to the greatest diversity of crayfsh in the world (Schuster 1997; Welch and Eversole 2006) .
Crayfshes are large, highly mobile, abundant invertebrates that utilize a wide variety of aquatic habitats and assume important roles in freshwater food webs (Pfieger 1996; Lodge et
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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