ABSTRACT: Monitoring is most effective when used as part of the adaptive management cycle, where monitoring results are used to make informed management decisions. Such monitoring requires that specific management objectives be developed that clearly articulate: (1) what species or habitat indicator will be monitored; (2) the geographical area in which the species or indicator will be monitored; (3) the attribute that will be monitored; (4) the measurable state or degree of change expected or allowed for the attribute; and (5) the time needed for management to prove itself effective. Examples of the two basic types of management objectives, target/threshold and change/trend management objectives, will be given and discussed. Ecological models and other tools can be used to develop good management objectives. The management action that will be taken in the event the management objective is not met should be specified in advance of the monitoring, with the agreement of the decision-maker and--if possible--all stakeholders.
Monitoring that involves sampling requires a sampling objective as a companion to the management objective. Unlike the management objective, which sets a specific goal for attaining some ecological condition or change value, the sampling objective sets a specific goal for the measurement of that value.
Companion sampling objectives for both target/threshold and change/trend management objectives will be given and discussed. Decisions on the intensity and extent of the monitoring that will be directed toward a particular species involve tradeoffs that need to be explicitly considered. Intensive quantitative monitoring of one species may well mean that other species will go unmonitored. Such decisions require consideration of factors such as the type and magnitude of threats facing the species, the ability of management to remove or reduce these threats, and the difficulty of effectively monitoring the species in question.
Another important decision is choosing the indicator that will be monitored. The indicator should be both sensitive to detecting change and efficient in terms of the amount of useful information per measurement cost. In many cases the indicator will be some attribute of the target species, such as density, cover, or frequency. In other cases, often because of the target speciesŐ life history, a threat-based indicator may be chosen instead. As an example, consider a rare annual plant subject to large between-year fluctuations in numbers in response to precipitation. The principal threat to the species is the potential spread of a noxious weed species. Density of the rare species would be an insensitive indicator of the effects of an increase in the noxious weed (because changes related to competition from the weed would be masked by precipitation effects). Some attribute of the weed species (such as frequency, which is very sensitive to changes in the spatial distribution of a species) may be a more sensitive and effective indicator of the health of the rare annual plant species. The disadvantage of using such a threat-based indicator is that declines in the rare plant species due to other unforeseen threats may be missed. For this reason, monitoring may need to be directed both toward determining the status of the rare plant species itself and determining changes in a threat-based indicator.
ABSTRACT: Population growth, land conversion, and invasive plant species are recognized as three of the leading causes of species extinctions and the extirpation of plant populations. Historically known for their roles in maintaining botanical and display collections botanic gardens have greatly expanded their programs in the past twenty-five years and are playing an ever more active role in plant conservation. Today there are thirty-three member gardens in the Center for Plant Conservation (CPC), a national coalition of botanic gardens with active conservation programs, and 525 world-wide member institutions in Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). Botanic gardens have developed strong collaborative roles within the larger conservation community which includes local non-governmental conservation organizations, public land management agencies, and universities. Botanic gardens are also involved within their local communities, increasing public awareness and providing tools, information, and inspiration to help resolve local conservation issues. Although many botanic gardens have active applied-conservation programs, the unique role of the botanic garden is often in the development and practice of ex-situ conservation research, collections management, and public education programs.
ABSTRACT: The California Natural Diversity Database is a statewide computer inventory of the rare plants and animals in California. The CNDDB maintains location information on the highest priority plants and animals in a GIS database and makes these data available to the public for a fee in a variety of ways. RareFind, a PC-based application, allows complex queries of the CNDDB data as well as integration with GIS software such as ArcMap. Information that is free to the public via the internet includes lists of rare taxa, updated quarterly, and general distribution data linked to 7.5-minute quadrangle maps. Submitting information to the Database is most easily done using the internet field survey form. The basis for defining separate occurrences of a species as those colonies more than 0.25 miles apart will be discussed. The need for better information on extirpated occurrences and on occurrence ranks will be emphasized