December 2012 Number 1 - Utah Native Plant Society

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Utah Native Plant Society earlier, however, the physiological limits of most species are unknown and may not be exceeded. Or species may be able to adapt at a pace commensurate with the rate of climate change. Alternatively, climate change may facilitate the migration of competitors into the specialized habitats of these species. Many uncertainties remain not only about the parameters of climate change itself, but also about its potential effects on rare plant species. Conservation Strategies We cannot predict with any certainty which of these 33 plant taxa, or for that matter the roughly 150 additional G2 taxa (those with fewer than 20 known occurrences), will be most affected by climate change. Nevertheless, several conservation actions can be identified to better ensure the long-term conservation of plant diversity in the Great Basin. Julius and others (2008) identified adaptation options with an overall goal of maximizing resilience to climate change and noted that establishing current baselines, identifying thresholds, and monitoring for changes will be essential elements of any adaptation approach. Clearly, inventory and monitoring are critical elements of a conservation strategy for these rare plants Yet only 23 percent of the 167 reported populations of the 33 rarest taxa have even been visited in the past decade, and population estimates are available for fewer than half of these populations (USFWS, unpublished data). Quantitative monitoring programs are in place, or in progress, for only five of the taxa. Without a concerted effort to establish baselines and a commitment to long-term monitoring, many populations could vanish without our knowledge, potentially compromising the long-term viability of species and certainly resulting in a loss of genetic resources. To inventory and monitoring, we can add ex situ approaches as an, admittedly less than ideal, but necessary element at least for genetic conservation. Ex situ conservation has long been regarded as an option of last resort among plant conservationists, in part, because of concern that it might be viewed as an acceptable alternative to the conservation of wild habitats. In the face of climate change, however, many botanists now recognize that ex situ conservation has a place among a portfolio of scientifically based techniques that support the primary objective of retaining plant diversity in the wild. Such techniques are requisite for restoration and relocation actions, especially when integrated with regional conservation for both ecosystems and suites of species (Guerrant and Pavlik 1997; Maunder et al. 2004; Pavlik 1996). Fortunately, both the infrastructure and successful models for comprehensive and integrated approaches for ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources exist. The Center for Plant Conservation (CPC; www.center for plantconservation.org), is dedicated solely to preventing the extinction of America’s imperiled native flora. Hosted at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, CPC coordinates a network of 33 participating institutions throughout the country which maintain plant material (seeds, cuttings, etc.) of the most imperiled plant species in their region as part of the National Collection of Endangered Plants, totaling some 700 species. Representation of the rarest plants of the Great Basin in the National Collection, however, is poor. Seeds of only two of the 33 taxa in this study, Eriogonum argophyllum and Eriogonum ovalifolium var. williamsiae, are in long-term conservation storage at participating institutions at the Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Berry Botanical Garden in Portland, Oregon, respectively. Among the 11 participating institutions in the western United States, the Berry Botanical Garden has the most comprehensive collection with 53 taxa conserved, although only a few of these are from the Great Basin, as delineated here, and it is uncertain how representative these samples are of the full range of genetic diversity among these few taxa. The Red Butte Garden, the designated primary seed repository for the Great Basin has 22 taxa conserved, most of which are plants endemic to Utah. Seed collection and long-term storage is also coordinated by the Bureau of Land Management’s Seeds of Success project established in 2001 in partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (http://www.nps.gov/ plants/sos/) to collect, conserve, and develop native plant materials for stabilizing, rehabilitating and restoring lands in the United States. This partnership has now grown to include many partners who have collected over 6,689 seed accessions. While the focus of Seeds of Success is on common species, it nevertheless provides a useful model for a comprehensive, landscape-based program of targeted seed collection. CONCLUSIONS While climate change poses ecosystemic challenges to many species, narrowly distributed and highly specialized taxa are particularly at risk. Among the rarest plants in Great Basin of Nevada, the majority of those likely to be at greatest risk are restricted to azonal edaphic habitats in the valleys. A comprehensive and integrated program of adaptation options is essential to maximize the resilience of their ecosystems to change. In particular, inventory, monitoring, and ex situ conservation are needed to ensure that baseline data are available against which demographic changes in these taxa can be evaluated and to ensure that genetic resources representative of the diversity within these taxa are conserved. Conservation of the full range of genetic diver- 100
Calochortiana December 2012 Number 1 sity will enhance the capability of future botanists to conserve these species in the wild, whether through population enhancement or translocation to new suitable sites. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This analysis would not have been possible without the extended efforts over the past half-century to document the flora of the Great Basin. The contributors to this effort are too numerous to list but their names reappear through the citations herein and in many of the specific epithets. The Nevada Natural Heritage Program plays an indispensable role in maintaining data on rare plant species. Thanks especially to my reviewers, Dr. Alan de Queiroz, Dr. Bruce Pavlik, and Dr. James Morefield; their comments helped clarify my thinking and made a substantial improvement in the manuscript. Finally, thanks to the Nevada Fish and Wildlife Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Office for allowing me time to complete this work. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. REFERENCES Aitken, M., D.W. Roberts, and L.M. Shultz. 2007. Modeling distributions of rare plants in the Great Basin, western North America. Western North American Naturalist. 67(1):26–38. Al-Shehbaz, I.A. and M.D. Windham. 2007. New or noteworthy North American Draba (Brassicaceae). Harvard Papers in Botany. 12(2):409–419. Anderson, S., M. White, and D. Atwood. 1991. Humboldt National Forest sensitive plant field guide. Ogden, UT: Department of Agriculture, U.S. Forest Service: unpaginated. Barneby, R.C. 1989. Trifolium andinum var. podocephalum. In: Cronquist, A.; Holmgren, A.H.; Holmgren, N.H.; Reveal, J.L.; Holmgren, P.K. Intermountain Flora: vascular plants of the Intermountain West, U.S.A. Volume Three, Part II (Fabales). Bronx, NY: The New York Botanical Garden: 217–218. Beatley, J. 1969. Biomass of desert winter annual plant populations in southern Nevada. Oikos. 20(2): 261–273. Beatley, J. 1975. Climates and vegetation pattern across the Mojave/Great Basin Desert transition of southern Nevada. American Midland Naturalist. 93: 53–70. Beever, E., P.F. Brussard, and J. Berger. 2003. Patterns of apparent extirpation among isolated populations of pikas (Ochotona princeps) in the Great Basin. Journal of Mammalogy. 84:37–54. Billings, W.D. 1949. The shadscale vegetation zone of Nevada and eastern California in relation to climate and soils. American Midland Naturalist. 42(1):87–109. Billings, W.D. 1950. Vegetation and plant growth as affected by chemically altered rocks in the western Great Basin. Ecology. 31:62–74. Billings, W.D. 1978. Alpine phytogeography across the Great Basin. In: Harper, K.T.; Reveal, J.L. Intermountain biogeography: a symposium. Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs 2, Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Printing Service: 105–118. Bonfils, C., B.D. Santer, D,W, Pierce, H.G. Hidaloo, B. Govindasamy, T. Das, T.P. Barnett, D.R. Cayan, C. Doutriaux, A.W. Wood, A. Mirin, and T. Nozawa. 2008. Detection and attribution of temperature changes in the mountainous Western United States. Journal of Climate. 21:6404–6424. Brown, J.H. 1971. Mammals on mountaintops: nonequilibrium insular biogeography. American Naturalist. 105:467–478. Brown, J.H. 1978. The theory of insular biogeography and the distribution of boreal birds and mammals. In: Harper, K.T.; Reveal, J.L. Intermountain biogeography: a symposium. Great Basin Naturalist Memoirs 2, Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Printing Service: 209–227. Cayan, D.R., S.A. Kammerdiener, M.D. Dettinger, J. M. Caprio, and D.H. Peterson. 2001. Changes in the onset of spring in the western United States. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 82:399–415. Charlet, D. 1996. Atlas of Nevada conifers: a phytogeographic reference. Reno, NV. University of Nevada Press: 320 p. Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. 2008. Scientific assessment of global change on the United States. Washington, D.C., U.S. Climate Change Science Program, National Science and Technology Council: 261 p. Comstock, J.P. and J.R. Ehleringer. 1992. Plant adaptation in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Great Basin Naturalist. 52(3):195–215. Crowder, D.F. and M.F. Sheridan. 1972. Geologic map of the White Mountain Peak Quadrangle, Mono County, California. U.S. Geologic Survey Report GQ– 1012. Cubashi, U, G.A. Meehl, and G.J. Boer. 2001. Projections of future climate change. In: Houghten, J.T., Ding, Y.; Griggs, D.J.; Noguer, M.; van der Linden, P.J.; Da, X.; Maskell, K.; Johnson, C.A., eds. Climate change 2001: the scientific basis. Contributions of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: [Online] Available: http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/? src=/CLIMATE/IPCC_TAR/wg1/109.htm. [March 13, 2009]. 101
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