Chapter 4 Habitats
environmental disturbances. For such species, lack of landscape connectivity can prevent restoration of populations through recolonization from unburned refuges. As a result, there may be a significant increase in local extirpations that may eventually lead to region-wide extirpations or even extinction of certain species. To protect sensitive insect populations, prescribed burns should include setting aside unburned refugia in every burn and preferably following a three-year burn rotation among three different burn units. Mild winters, with decreased cold damage, are likely to allow species from the south to move into North Carolina. In recent years, several Longleaf Pine-associated insects once thought to be restricted to Florida or the Gulf Coast have been found to be established in North Carolina. Although we lack the historic data to know for sure that these represent recent colonizations, this trend will undoubtedly accelerate with decreasingly cold winters. Fire Ant impacts are also a growing threat. 4.4.14.6 Recommendations Because so few examples remain, at least outside of the Sandhills ecoregion, protecting and expanding remaining examples is crucial with or without climate change. Because these systems are likely to withstand the stresses of changing climate well, restoring more of them in the near future would produce more resilient natural landscapes. Protecting and restoring landscape connections are important to allow movements of mobile species and to improve the viability of small populations. The need for this is particularly important for disturbance- maintained habitats such as Longleaf Pine ecosystems and will increase with the stresses of a changing climate. 4.4.14.6.1 Surveys Surveys are systematic and scientific methods of collecting information about the distribution, abundance, and ecology of wildlife or their habitats in a specific area at a specific time. A habitat survey is a method of gathering information about the ecology of a site. The results of a habitat survey provide basic ecological information that can be used for biodiversity conservation, planning and/or management, including targeting of more detailed botanical or zoological investigations (Smith et al. 2011) . Repeated surveys using the same methods can provide information about conditions and changes to species assemblages and habitat composition over time. Priorities for conducting distributional and status surveys need to focus on species believed to be declining or mainly dependent on at-risk or sensitive communities.
Priority Conservation Action, Examples of Focal Species or Focal Habitats
• Conduct surveys to document the distribution, relative abundance, and status of priority wildlife species associated with dry Longleaf Pine habitats.
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2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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