Chapter 3 North Carolina Species
• The Tribe develops reports by organizing and disseminating inventory and monitoring data and sharing them with collaborators and funding agencies. The data are interpreted, and management recommendations are developed. In 2012, the NCWRC published “Conservation Recommendations for Priority Terrestrial Wildlife Species and Habitats in North Carolina,” a guide to development and habitat management practices to best protect priority species and habitats (NCWRC 2012) . Simple recommendations are accompanied by an extensive appendix of backing research for each. The NCWRC will continue to promote these practices and update the guide as needed. The guide can be downloaded from the NCWRC wildlife and habitat website https://www.ncwildlife.gov/wildlife-habitat. 3.1.8 Species and Habitat Associations A discussion about species will necessarily require consideration for the natural communities that provide the habitats they occupy. To aid the discussion about conservation and management actions, we have developed species-habitat association information for SGCN. The resulting species-habitat matrix is organized by ecoregions of the state (Mountain, Piedmont, Sandhills, and Coastal Plain) for the aquatic, wetland, and terrestrial communities and the state’s major river basins described in Chapter 4 Habitats. Habitat associations between SGCN from the eight taxonomic groups evaluated by Taxa Teams and the aquatic and terrestrial habitats and major river basins are provided in the following appendices. The following Excel tables can be downloaded from the 2025 SWAP website at www.ncwildlife.gov/plan.
• Table 3-17 (Appendix 3) provides terrestrial habitat associations for SGCN, by ecoregion and taxonomic group.
• Table 3-18 (Appendix 3) provides aquatic habitat associations for SGCN, by major river basins and taxonomic group.
• Table 3-22 (Appendix 3) provides plant habitat associations for SGCN, by ecoregion.
Because natural communities are composed of many different species and trophic levels, information about the functional relationships between and amongst the species found in these communities is also discussed in Chapter 4. Groups of species that use the same resources but are not taxonomically related are often referred to as an ecological guild. The guild concept is often used to provide a framework for discussions about survey, research, and monitoring needs and conservation recommendations that benefit multiple species, such as shorebirds and colonial waterbirds, and the natural communities they occupy. A few important species’ guilds and associations are discussed in Sections 3.2 through 3.13.
2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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