December 2012 Number 1 - Utah Native Plant Society

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Great Basin, Colorado Plateau, and Rocky Mountains. The next three counties with the greatest number of species of conservation concern (Kane, Garfield, and San Juan) are all, like Washington County, located on or near the southern boundary of the state. Additional counties with a high number of species of concern include Uintah, Duchesne, Grand, and Emery counties near the eastern border of Utah. By contrast, the number of rare species is relatively low in the northern and western tier of counties. Surprisingly few plant species of conservation concern occur in the greater Salt Lake City area, though this may be an artifact of undersampling or reflect significant habitat losses over the last 150 years of settlement (Fertig 2009). Ecoregions are defined as geographic areas with a similar climate, topography, and vegetation. The Nature Conservancy has developed a national ecoregional classification (Stein et al. 2000) that recognizes seven ecoregions in Utah (Figure 2*). Of these, the Colorado Plateau ecoregion has the highest number of plant species of conservation concern with 323 taxa, or 37.6% of the state total (Table 3). This region, which includes the canyon country and La Sal and Abajo mountains of southeast Utah, also has the highest number of endemic species in the state (Welsh and Atwood 2009). Although comparable in area to the Colorado Plateau, the Great Basin ecoregion has less than half as many species of concern (152 taxa). The Mohave Desert ecoregion of extreme southwestern Utah is the second smallest in area in the state (after the Columbia River Basin in the Grouse Creek and Raft River mountains of northwest Utah) but has the highest concentration of species of concern per unit area (138 taxa in all). The Utah High Plateaus, which extends from the Tavaputs Plateau and Book Cliffs of eastern Utah to the Wasatch Plateau, and Markagunt and Paunsaugunt plateaus of southcentral Utah, has the second highest concentration of endemics and taxa of conservation concern (205 species, or 23.9% of the state total) (Table 3). DISCUSSION The UNPS rare plant list is just the latest in a long series of comparable publications dating back to the passage of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. No plants were included in the very first official list of species protected under the ESA, but Congress directed the Smithsonian Institution to develop the first national list of vascular plants that might qualify for listing as *Welsh and Atwood (2009) have developed a similar system of “geoendemic areas” to identify floristic regions of Utah. Their map depicts 12 subregions and differs from the TNC system in lumping the Columbia River Basin with the Great Basin and in more finely subdividing the Utah-Wyoming Rocky Mountains, Utah High Plateaus, Colorado Plateau, and Mohave Desert ecoregions. Utah Native Plant Society 204 Threatened or Endangered. That list appeared in 1975 and was based on the best available information at the time (Ayensu and DeFilipps 1978, Greenwalt 1975). The Smithsonian Institution cited 761 plant taxa as potentially Endangered, 1238 as Threatened, and 100 as extinct in the continental United States (another 1088 endangered, threatened, and extinct species were reported for Hawaii). Of these, 156 species were from Utah, including 56 listed as endangered, 91 threatened, and 9 extinct (Greenwalt 1975). Welsh and others (1975) reviewed the Smithsonian publication and developed the first Utah-specific compilation of endangered, threatened, extinct, endemic, and rare plant species in 1975. Welsh and his co-authors recognized 66 Utah plant taxa as possibly endangered, 198 as threatened, 7 as extinct, and 20 as extirpated (extinct in Utah, but extant elsewhere). Most of the recommendations by Welsh and others (1975) were incorporated into a revised Smithsonian list (Ayensu and De- Filipps 1978) that became part of a proposal to list nearly 1700 plant species as Threatened or Endangered in 1976 (the proposal was ultimately dismissed). These initial rare species lists were plagued by incomplete data and taxonomic problems. Of the 156 Utah species considered endangered, threatened, or extinct by the Smithsonian Institution in 1975, only 39 (25%) are still considered taxa of Extremely High or High conservation priority today. At least 13 of these species (8.3%) are no longer recognized as legitimate taxa. Another 28 species (18%) are now known to be much more common or less threatened and are classified as Low priority by UNPS. Eight of the nine species considered extinct in 1975 have been rediscovered (only Cuscuta warneri is still thought to be extirpated in Utah). Among the additional 225 state endemics and other potentially rare species evaluated by Welsh and others (1975), one half (112 taxa) are now scored as Low priority and 26 (11.5%) are no longer recognized taxonomically. Over the next two decades new Utah rare plant lists were developed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, and non-governmental organizations (such as The Nature Conservancy and Utah Native Plant Society). The composition of these lists continued to evolve to reflect ever-improving knowledge of the distribution, abundance, and status of the state’s flora (Atwood et al. 1991; Utah Division of Wildlife Resources 1998; Utah Native Plant Society 1980, 1982; Welsh 1978; Welsh and Chatterley 1985; Welsh and Thorne 1979). Threat of potential listings under the ESA prompted a large scale effort to survey rare species and remote corners of the nation for new taxa. During the period from 1975 to 1994 nearly 1200 new vascular plant taxa were described across North America, or approximately 60 new
Calochortiana December 2012 Number 1 species per year (Hartman and Nelson 1998). In Utah alone, over 250 new plant taxa have been named since the early 1970s (Welsh et al. 2008). Not surprisingly, most of these newly discovered species are narrow endemics with few or small populations and specialized habitat requirements, making them potential candidates for rare plant lists. Fifty-five percent of the current UNPS Extremely High priority list (17 species) and 52% of the High priority list (62 species) have only been named since 1978. In the years since 1975, field surveys and taxonomic research have resulted in many plant taxa being removed from consideration as species of concern due to lack of threat, stable trends, or documented abundance. At least 772 of the current 2302 Utah plant taxa scored as Low priority by UNPS (33.5%) have been listed as potentially Endangered, Threatened, extinct, or otherwise rare at one time. Of the 28 Utah species that have been listed as Threatened or Endangered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service since 1978, four have subsequently been delisted (Astragalus perianus, Erigeron maguirei, Echinocereus engelmannii var. purpureus, and Echinocereus triglochidiatus var. inermis) because surveys have found them to be much more common, or the taxa are no longer recognized. Future Applications Rare plant lists have a short shelf life. The UNPS list has already been revised twice since it first appeared in 2009 and will need to be updated again in the coming year. With the publication of the final volume of the Intermountain Flora (Holmgren et al. 2012) at least 36 new native plant species have been documented in Utah which have not been evaluated by the UNPS Rare Plant Committee. Several of these species are narrow endemics that are likely to be ranked as Extremely High, High, or Watch list species when sufficient data are available for review. Other species currently on the Need Data list will also likely be placed in higher priority categories in the near future. Undoubtedly, there are more rare species still awaiting discovery in the years ahead. Results of on-going monitoring studies and field inventories will also improve our understanding of many species and result in shifts in their conservation priority. In addition to Utah, the Wyoming protocol has been recently applied to the entire flora of Wyoming (Fertig 2011) and to Zion National Park (Fertig 2010b). In Zion, the park’s initial list of over 200 species of concern was streamlined to 51 taxa, of which only 13 were deemed Extremely High or High priority. Some species were given a slightly different rank in the park compared to the state as a whole, reflecting differences in scale and data sufficiency (Fertig 2010b). The Idaho and Arizona native plant societies have also expressed interest in using this methodology to rank rare plants in their respective states. As it is used more frequently, the protocol will hopefully be strengthened and improved. It is important to remember that the UNPS rare plant list has no binding legal authority and is only as accurate as the information used for ranking. The list and the listing process remain useful, however, because they provide a simple, repeatable, and transparent method to prioritize conservation action among hundreds of rare species. With conservation resources stretched thin and time running out, this form of triage may be critical to preserving Utah’s most vulnerable botanical treasures. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS These lists were developed with the input of my fellow members of the Utah Native Plant Society Rare Plant Committee: Duane Atwood (BYU herbarium, retured), Rita [Dodge] Reisor (Red Butte Garden), Robert Fitts (UT Conservation Data Center), Ben Franklin (UT Conservation Data Center, retired), and Jason Alexander (Utah Valley University). The original list benefited from input from more than 40 participants in the Utah rare plant breakout session at the 2009 Southwest Rare Plant Conference. Additional helpful comments and suggestions have been provided by attendees of the annual Utah Rare Plant meetings from 2010 to 2012. Special thanks to the following for their input on various iterations of the UNPS list: Ron Bolander (BLM state botanist), Jessie Brunson (USFWS), Debi Clark (Canyon De Chelley NM), Cheryl Decker (NPS SE Utah Group), Larry England (USFWS, retired), Tony Frates (UNPS Conservation Committee and webmaster), Kipp Lee (UNPS), Kezia Nielson (Zion NP), Teresa Prendusi (USFS regional botanist), Gary Reese (consultant), Daniela Roth (formerly USFWS), Jim Spencer (NRCS, Roosevelt UT), Blake Wellard (University of Utah grad student) and Dorde Woodruff (Utah cactus expert). My apologies (and thanks) to other contributors whom I have omitted inadvertently. LITERATURE CITED Akçakaya, H.R., S. Ferson, M.A. Burgman, D.A. Keith, G.M. Mace, and C.R. Todd. 2000. Making consistent IUCN classifications under uncertainty. Conservation Biology 14 (4):1001-1013. Andelman, S.J., C. Groves, and H.M. Regan. 2004. A review of protocols for selecting species at risk in the context of US Forest Service viability assessments. Acta Oecologica 26:75-83. Atwood, D., J. Holland. R. Bolander, B. Franklin, D.E. House, L. Armstrong, K. Thorne, and L. England. 1991. Utah Threatened, Endangered, and Sensitive Plant Field Guide. US Forest Service Intermountain Region, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Utah Natural Heritage Program, US Fish and 205
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December 2012 Number 1 - Utah Native Plant Society

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