4.4 Terrestrial Communities
disjuncts, the loss of which cannot be replaced. Along with the spruce–fr forests, northern hardwood forests should be considered as one of the most threatened by climate change and should receive a high priority for intervention. Like the spruce–fr forests, a substan- tial amount of the acreage of this group is located on public lands or on other conservation lands. Consequently, intervention should be easier to implement for northern hardwood forests than for many others. Surveys. Distributional and status surveys need to focus on species believed to be declin- ing or mainly dependent on at-risk or sensitive natural communities. • Fill in distribution gaps for Carolina Northern Flying Squirrel. Continue survey work on distributions within and between known populations.
• Obtain baseline data on SGCN and priority species, especially species that depend on high-elevation forests.
• Conduct shrew surveys to determine the distribution of Long-tailed, Pygmy, and Water shrews and surveys to document the response of shrews to disturbance/management. • Conduct surveys for rare salamanders like Weller’s, Northern and Southern Pygmy, Seepage, and Tellico, as well as more common species such as Ravine Salamanders, to determine their actual distribution and better defne their habitat associations. Monitoring. Long-term monitoring is critical to assessing species and ecosystem health over time and gauging the resilience of organisms to a changing climate. Tese eforts will inform future decisions on how to manage species and their habitats. Studies should include identifcation of population trends, as well as assessment of impacts from conserva- tion or development activities. Long-term monitoring sites need to be identifed and moni- toring protocols developed for all priority species. Monitoring plans should be coordinated with other existing monitoring programs where feasible. • Establish monitoring systems and protocols and implement programs to monitor popu- lation trends for all high-elevation species. • Develop and implement monitoring systems and protocols for population trends for all high-elevation species, including those associated with northern hardwood forest, with top priority toward rare species and secondary priority toward all species occurring in this relatively rare community of the North Carolina landscape. • Establish more Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) stations, point counts, and migration banding stations; montane birds are not adequately picked up in BBS routes.
402
2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online