Page 51 - GIS for Science, Volume 3 Preview

STEWARDSHIP RESPONSIBILITIES FOR CONSERVING IMPERILED SPECIES
Effective conservation requires an understanding of land ownership. Who has responsibility for conserving imperiled species, and where should land managers focus their efforts to prevent species extinctions? The MoBI maps provide biodiversity data for spatial overlays with land ownership that can guide stewardship of imperiled species
Conservation responsibility for species in major taxonomic groups. The graph shows the relative count of species in each group for which 50% or more of the species’ modeled habitat overlaps federal, state, local, or privately owned lands.
The Center for Biological Diversity publishes regular videos on YouTube that make animals such as this freshwater mussel, the Arkansas fatmucket (Lampsillis powlellii), more understandable to people. While not as cute and cuddly as, say, a black-footed ferret, these “out of site, out of mind” animals are essential to healthy freshwater ecosystems and have experienced more documented extinctions than any other species group in the United States. (Video linked at GISforScience.com.)
on public and private lands and support more efficient and effective compliance with state and federal endangered species regulations.
Analysis of species distribution by land ownership category reveals patterns that inform strategies for protecting biodiversity. Reinforcing the findings of previous research (Jenkins et al. 2015), the extent to which private lands hold the fate of our nation’s natural heritage emerges as a striking result. In all taxonomic groupings, more at-risk species have the greater part of their modeled distribution on private lands than in any other stewardship class.
This finding is overwhelmingly true for freshwater invertebrates, represented by crayfish and mussels. MoBI is the first analysis to produce comprehensive, high- resolution distribution maps for all imperiled species in these freshwater invertebrate groups. These often overlooked and poorly studied animals play essential roles in freshwater ecosystem services, purifying water and forming important links in aquatic food webs that support important recreational and commercial fisheries. The southeastern United States has globally significant diversity of these freshwater species, with richness that rivals that of tropical aquatic systems. Yet they are also the most imperiled group of organisms in the United States and have already suffered many extinctions.
Areas with range-restricted, unprotected imperiled freshwater invertebrates in the Southeast highlight areas of high biodiversity importance for this ecologically critical taxonomic group for which the United States harbors globally significant species diversity.
Preventing Species Extinctions 39