FNAI Catalogs Florida's Endemic Species

This summer FNAI staff reviewed the scientific literature and our database to ensure that all species found nowhere in the world but Florida were correctly identified and coded as endemic.  With more than 2,000 endemic species, Florida ranks 4^th among US states, behind California, Hawaii, and Texas.  This count includes just full species, if infraspecific taxa, like subspecies or varieties, are included the number rises substantially.  

FNAI tracks species that are potential conservation targets based on their rarity, vulnerability, or threats they face.  We track many endemics but there are some species, Polygala rugellii and Quercus inopina for example, which, despite not being found elsewhere, are sufficiently common within Florida that they currently do not require conservation efforts to ensure their continued existence.  The table below lists counts of endemic species by taxonomic group and whether or not FNAI tracks them.

Florida’s endemic species by group:

	Not tracked	Tracked	Total
PLANTS AND LICHENS	70	122	192
FISH	2	2	4
AMPHIBIANS	0	1	1
REPTILES	0	4	4
BIRDS	0	1	1
MAMMALS	0	3	3
INVERTEBRATES	>1,500	199	>1,700
Total	>1,572	332	>2,000

Aphelocoma coerulescens, the Florida scrub jay, is Florida's only endemic bird species.  Photo by Gary Knight.

Scutellaria floridana, the Florida skullcap, is only known from a 4 county section of the panhandle.  Photo by Amy Jenkins.

The map below, exported from FNAI’s Biotics data management system, shows occurrence centroids for the endemic species that we track.  Endemic species are concentrated in several areas including the Lake Wales Ridge, the Panhandle, the southeastern part of the state including the Atlantic Ridge and Miami Rockridge, the Keys, and to a lesser extent, the central portions of the East and West Coasts.  

 

FNAI element occurrences for endemic species

  

Polygala rugelii, yellow milkwort, is an endemic that FNAI doesn't track.  It is found through out the entire peninsular portion of the state.  Photo by Gary Knight.

Update from the Field: FNAI Biologists Begin Busy Fall Season

FNAI staff are in the field year-round, but fall and spring are especially busy times.  Based on current plans, our biologists will be visiting no fewer than 17 sites across Florida over the next few months.

Projects include rare plant, gopher tortoise, and invasive species surveys, Objective-Based Vegetation Management Monitoring, and historical and current natural communities mapping.  These projects will be contributing to our Element Occurrence database of rare plants, animals, and natural communities, as well as informing the efforts of conservation land managers around the state.  Along with biologists from local, state, and federal agencies and NGOs, FNAI staff are the "boots on the ground" for Florida conservation!

Map of the Month: CLIP

The Critical Lands and Waters Identification Project (CLIP) is a collection of spatial data that identify statewide priorities for a broad range of natural resources in Florida.  CLIP grew out of a request in 2006, by the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, for a statewide inventory of natural resource priorities that could inform long range planning decisions.   

CLIP has been developed through a collaborative effort between the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, the University of Florida GeoPlan Center and Center for Landscape Conservation Planning, and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC).  The CLIP partners have relied upon a team of expert advisors from state and federal agencies, water management districts, NGOs, and the private sector, to provide consensus guidance on data compilation and model construction.

CLIP version 3.0 is organized into a set of core natural resource data layers which are combined into five resource categories:  biodiversity, landscapes, surface water, groundwater, and marine.  The first three categories have also been combined into the Aggregated CLIP model, which identifies five priority levels for natural resource conservation.

CLIP database hierarchy.

CLIP and Conservation Planning in Florida

 

CLIP has served to inform a variety of conservation planning projects throughout Florida since version 1.0 was completed in 2008:   

•       CLIP relies heavily on FNAI’s Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment, a set of data and analyses funded by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Division of State Lands, that informs Florida’s landmark environmental land acquisition program. 

•       CLIP has been integral to the FWC Cooperative Conservation Blueprint, including a regional version of CLIP produced for the CCB Pilot Project region of south central and southwest Florida.

•       Building on this success, CLIP has been incorporated as the centerpiece of planning by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative. 

•       CLIP has also served as the basis for several regional planning projects, including the Heartland 2060 regional visioning project, and the Northwest Florida Greenlinks initiative.

Important Reminders About CLIP

 

•       CLIP is more than a map.  It is a GIS database consisting of 20 core data layers and 4 overlay models.  The Aggregated CLIP Priorities map should not necessarily be used in isolation from its components.  Users may find that different subsets of CLIP data are useful for different purposes.

•       CLIP is a natural resource inventory.  It is not a conservation plan.  The database and report make no recommendations for specific actions for priority areas. Users should not assume that intensive land uses are incompatible with all high priority areas, or that such land uses are always compatible with low priority areas.

•       CLIP is a decision support tool.  CLIP’s primary value is as a screening tool to quickly identify areas with high natural resource value.  Users should then follow up with more thorough study of these areas using a variety of data and sources to confirm the significance of resources.  CLIP can help identify tradeoffs in choosing land use actions on one area compared to another.

CLIP is currently funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with past funding from FWC and the Century Commission, as well as funding from the DEP State Lands for the Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment.  For more information about CLIP, including reports, data, and an online map viewer, visit FNAI’s CLIP page.