Full ecoregional plan - Conservation Gateway

Table 7. Progress towards goals for large and small patch community groupsCommunity GroupNo. ofAssociations(community types)Goal forCommunityGroup*Total No. ofOccurrencesin thePortfolioPercentage ofGoalAchievedBogs and acidic fens 6 65 56 86Calcareous fens 11 260 23 9Cliff/outcrops 1 30 66 220Dec. of mixed woodlands 3 34 21 62Floodplain forest and woodland 10 146 16 11Marsh and meadow 4 40 8 20Palustrine Forest and woodland 33 384 47 12Pond and lake 6 75 18 24Ridgetop/rocky summit 11 97 28 29River and stream 7 110 20 18Sandplain 7 162 4 3Serpentine barrens 2 54 3 6Terrest. Conifer forest 7 37 10 27Terrest. Decid. Forest 18 132 71 54Terrest. Mixed forest 8 81 2 3Tidal 8 65 40 62* These goals represent the rarity and distribution goal for each association type multiplied by the numberof associations in the community group.From these data there are several clear trends that reflect the composition of the Heritagedatabases, the current state of the national classification, and their effect on achievinggoals and conservation success in LNE-NP. Some general observations include:• The inventory efforts of the Heritage Programs have been focused primarily on rareand small patch communities. There are abundance of occurrences for bogs, fens, andwhite cedar swamps, but few documented occurrences of palustrine and uplandforests. TNC and Heritage Programs need to inventory and identify high qualityoccurrences of more common community types as these data are lacking.• Many occurrences were eliminated during analysis because they were not consideredviable or their viability was in question. 60% of the 1090 occurrences were notselected for the portfolio. Of these, 324 are classed as “maybe viable” and might beaccepted into the portfolio pending additional information. The majority ofoccurrences (226) are for community associations underrepresented in the portfolio.• Goals were set based on patch size and distribution. The goal for a small patch,restricted community was 30 for the whole ecoregion. Some of the rarestcommunities are well below their goal because there are in fact few occurrences forthese communities. New goals should be set for these targets during the 2 nd iteration.COMM-RESULTS-4