Chapter 3 North Carolina Species
Priority Conservation Action, Examples of Focal Species or Focal Habitats • Establish long-term survey plots on NCWRC-managed public lands for annual survey activities for insect SGCN, especially native bumble bees.
Bumble Bees
3.10.7.2 Monitoring There are few monitoring programs in place for beneficial insects (i.e., pollinators). Long-term monitoring is critical to assessing species and ecosystem health and gauging the resilience of organisms to a changing climate. New monitoring efforts are needed to document insects as the efforts are a crucial first step toward broadly tracking trends in insect abundance and diversity. Using established insect monitoring methods and sharing data will maximize benefits from the information (Montgomery et al. 2021) . A successful long-term national monitoring program will generate broadly accessible, continuous, and reliable authoritative data sets that span multiple time periods, sites, and species, and can be used to explore and answer a broad range of questions (Woodard et al. 2020) . Priority Conservation Action, Examples of Focal Species or Focal Habitats • Develop a statewide monitoring program for insect SGCN using consistent methods and making data accessible to conservation partners.
• Reduce population impacts by using non-lethal methods for collecting data and identifying species (to the extent possible).
• Focus monitoring programs on SGCN priority species, host plants, and habitats.
Native bee species
Endemic host plants
Longleaf Pine Savanna
• Participate in national strategies and networks, adopt standardized survey and monitoring protocols, and use existing data sets in trend analysis.
USDA National Native Bee Monitoring Network
SE Bumble Bee Atlas
3.10.7.3 Research Research topics that facilitate appropriate conservation actions include habitat use and preferences, reproductive behavior, fecundity, population dynamics and genetics, feeding, competition, and food web dynamics. Increased understanding of life histories and status helps determine the vulnerability of priority species to further imperilment, in addition to identifying
2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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