I've always been a sucker for the Piedmont. It's constantly overlooked in favor of the mountains and the coast. It's an underdog with a really interesting and poorly understood ecological history. The fact that most people don't know what the Piedmont used to look like is limiting conservation action in the Blueprint and is a [...]
This figure from the paper shows one of 10 experimental landscapes from the study, each containing a center fragment that is either connected or unconnected to peripheral fragments of open longleaf pine savanna surrounded by dense pine plantations. Photo credit: Google Earth 2019. So much connectivity work is about finding ways for large [...]
As you probably know by now, we're always working on ways to improve the South Atlantic Ecosystem Indicators. With a South Atlantic Blueprint update on the horizon for next year, we're putting some extra focus on those indicator improvements. We have a prioritized list of things to work on based on feedback from Blueprint users [...]
This deep-sea lizardfish was seen around 1,610 meters (5,282 feet) during the final dive of the Windows to the Deep 2019 expedition. Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Windows to the Deep 2019. Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around the depths of the ocean. [...]
Southeast Blueprint Version 4.0 is now finalized! It was presented and reviewed at the Southeast Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) annual meeting a couple of weeks ago. Since no one raised any concerns or caught any mistakes, it's officially ready to use. We made lots of great improvements this year, including: Fixed the [...]
Shared from Rua’s post on the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy blog Estimated percent change in indicator over 4 years based on most recently available data. You may remember that, last year, SECAS officially adopted a goal of a 10% or greater improvement in the health, function, and connectivity of Southeastern ecosystems by 2060. One of the [...]
Shared from Rua's post on the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy blog Draft Southeast Blueprint 4.0 identifies important areas for conservation and restoration across the Southeast and Caribbean. This year’s draft update of the Southeast Conservation Blueprint is now up and ready for you to explore. We made lots of great improvements this year, [...]
Shared from this guest blog on the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy website by John Kanter and Bruce Stein, National Wildlife Federation To provide greater clarity and focus for regional conservation and multi-state collaborations, a new “Regional Species of Greatest Conservation Need” list is now available for use in the Southeast and in support of [...]
Piedmont prairie at Mason Farm Biological Reserve in Chapel Hill, NC. Photo by Rua Mordecai. More and more people seem to be talking about Piedmont prairies lately. It's another ecosystem that has gone through huge declines, but is starting to come back---thanks to the work of many dedicated people throughout the Piedmont. With [...]
This is a sneak peek at the draft report titled Recent Trends in Southeastern Ecosystems: Measuring progress toward the Southeast Conservation Adaptation Strategy (SECAS) Goal. Forested wetland birds is one of the 12 indicators covered in the report. There's more background about the goal on the SECAS website. Forested wetland birds Species trend data for [...]