Science Seminar: Prioritizing plant species for conservation

Please join us at noon on Tuesday, November 7, for a Science Seminar led by NatureServe’s Lead Botanist Anne Frances to learn about a new resource that identifies vascular plants of conservation concern for the North Atlantic region.

Title: Prioritizing rare, highly threatened, declining, or sensitive plant species to inform conservation from the ground up

Date and time: Tuesday, November 7th, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. (EST)

Location: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Regional Office and online (see Event details below)

Description: Although the North Atlantic Region of the United States and Canada boasts diverse habitats, from coasts to mountains, that support endemic and rare plant species, many conservation actions and efforts neglect to factor plants into their prioritization approaches due to a lack of information. In response to this need, researchers at NatureServe conducted a broad-scale conservation assessment for vascular plants that occur in the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) region. The resulting report provides a prioritized list of rare, highly threatened, declining, or sensitive plant species identified for conservation action that can inform initiatives to protect ecological systems from the ground up.

NatureServe used the best available scientific data for this assessment, including Element Occurrences, published literature, and expert knowledge to develop a comprehensive list of over 3,135 vascular plant taxa for prioritization. This list of potential taxa was narrowed to approximately 1,200 taxa that were evaluated for their conservation priority in the North Atlantic region. For each taxon, researchers developed regional ranks (R-ranks), updated Global Ranks, documented threats and trends, and identified gaps in conservation knowledge. Of the evaluated taxa, 431 had R-ranks of R1 (Regionally Critically Imperiled), R2 (Regionally Imperiled), or R3 (Regionally Vulnerable). This group of 431 vascular plants were determined to be the highest conservation priorities for the LCC region.

Event details: The presentation can be viewed online via WebEx, or in the large auditorium of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Regional Office at 300 Westgate Center Drive, Hadley, Mass. 

Follow this link to view the presentation online.

Meeting number: 748 055 405

Meeting password: hPN3iMV$

Join the teleconference at: 1-866-762-5634

Attendee passcode: 69 87 529

About the presenter: Dr. Anne Frances is the Lead Botanist for the NatureServe Network, a conservation nonprofit that collects, analyzes and distributes detailed scientific data about plants, animals, and ecosystems in several focal jurisdictions. In this capacity, Dr. Frances sets priorities for and guides the activities of NatureServe’s botany department, including overseeing Global Rank Reviews and Climate Change Vulnerability Index Assessments for all plant species. She currently serves as the North American Plant Red List Authority and has collaborated on Red List projects such as the Global Cactus Assessment and updated the conservation status of rare orchids in the United States. Dr. Frances has a BA in Biology from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, a MS from Florida International University, and a PhD from the University of Florida. She serves as Affiliate Faculty at George Mason University.