Full ecoregional plan - Conservation Gateway

combinations based on surficial geology, topography, and elevation (See Appendix 5 fora complete description of Ecological Land Units.). Assuming that ELU’s are a surrogatefor natural community diversity where field data are lacking would suggest that thisecoregion is quite diverse. A number of endemic species occur in LNE-NP and theregions long north-south axis captures species and natural communities morerepresentative of the Northern Appalachian Boreal ecoregion in higher elevations andsouthern species in the Piedmont. The large rivers, particularly those that are tidal in theirlower reaches, provide habitat for estuarine species more indicative of the North AtlanticCoast ecoregion.Europeans settled the ecoregion soon after their arrival. The following century ofwidespread and intensive land use significantly influenced the distribution andcomposition of the region’s landscapes and natural communities. More than 90% of theoriginal forest cover was removed and only a few patches of old growth forest remains inremote, inaccessible mountain coves and ravines. With the decline of farming at the turnof the last century much of the region returned to forest. Today, approximately 67% ofthe region is forested; 70% is in natural cover of one form or another. Black bear, moose,white-tail deer, turkey, bobcat, fisher, pine marten, and beaver can all be found, onceagain, throughout the northern and central portions of the Lower New England ecoregionand generally appear to be expanding their ranges.Nonetheless, the ecoregion remains one of the most highly populated in the country withmany cities including Nashua and Manchester, NH, Springfield and Worcester, MA,Hartford, CT, Albany, NY and New York City, Baltimore, MD, York and Lancaster, PA,and Washington, D.C. Added to this are the suburbs for the cities of Boston, Providence,RI, New Haven, CT, New York, Philadelphia. The great forest expanses are now beingincreasingly fragmented by first and second home development. While the mountainousareas of the ecoregion are lightly settled, the valleys have long been developed foragriculture, and both are rapidly succumbing to development pressures (Map 6. LandCover).SubsectionsEighteen subsections have been characterized within the ecoregion and were used in theplanning process to set geographic distribution goals for species targets. A moregeneralized sub-region map with 6 subregion divisions was created for evaluating thedistribution and setting conservation goals for communities. Table 1 illustrates thedivisions and lists the names of the subregions and subsections. Map 2 illustrates theirgeographic distribution.3/2003 ECOREG-2