Rare Plant Communities Initiative

A fen meadow in the Sequoia National Forest, 2010.

Through its Rare Plant Communities Initiative (RPC), CNPS is developing tools and training individuals/groups to identify and protect rare vegetation types as key units of biodiversity.

Vegetation types provide key ecosystem services by maintaining water cycles, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and providing habitat for rare plant and animal species. Conversion and degradation of rare vegetation types can disrupt the integrity of the ecological functions of our natural environments, leading to the loss of sensitive plant and animal species and a corresponding decrease in biodiversity. The inherent values of vegetation have lead scientists and conservationists to make use of vegetation patterns as a surrogate for ecosystems for many years.

With this Initiative, CNPS has begun a multi-step process to identify, inventory, map, and track rare communities throughout the state. The main objectives are to:

• Utilize and expand existing methods to identify, sample, and map rare communities
• Identify new processes to document and protect rare communities
• Identify funding for future work in key regions and habitats of the state (e.g., Central Coast and maritime chaparral vegetation, riparian and wetland vegetation)
• Train/assist local CNPS and other partners on using our existing and new processes
• Analyze existing and new data to better describe rare vegetation
• Update rarity ranks of rare, threatened, and endangered vegetation
• Provide useful descriptions and maps of rare vegetation with other agencies
• Develop conservation measures and strategies

Find out more about the RPC Initiative by reading our Position Statement (PDF 58kb) and recent CNPS paper (PDF 3.5Mb).

Mapping Rare Plant Communities

In February 2011, CNPS completed the Guidelines for Mapping of Rare Vegetation to assist in the development and standardization of rare plant community mapping throughout the state. We encourage you to download and use these Guidelines and to share your feedback so that we can continue to refine them during the 2012 field season. You can download the Guidelines for Mapping Rare Vegetation by clicking here or through our Vegetation Sampling, Classification, & Mapping page.

Recent updates of the Rare Plant Communities Initiative:

Recent Articles:
Carnivorous plants in Meadows and Fens
Cypress - A Rare Natural Community

Fen Reports Finalized
CNPS, US Forest Service (USFS), and collaborating partners have completed a draft report that summarizes the current knowledge of fens throughout 11 National Forests of the Sierra Nevada and adjacent areas. The report reviews existing literature and unpublished studies, summarizes USFS efforts to inventory fen resources, analyzes data compiled from over 800 fen surveys, and identifies gaps in available data. In the past decade, standardized procedures have been developed to survey and monitor fens; these procedures are further revised in this report based on work conducted by CNPS and USFS in 2009-10. This report will be posted when finalized.

A separate report for fens of the Lake Tahoe Basin was just finalized.  You can view this fen report here, or you can access this and additional fen reports on our Reports page under the ‘Fen Vegetation, U.S. Forest Service Lands’ section.

Workshops Held in Southern California

Enjoying the shade in a Tamarix sp. grove, BLM employees learn about mapping vegetation. Photo by D. Stout.

In late April 2011, Vegetation Program staff held two Rare Plant Community sampling and mapping workshops in southern California.

Danielle Roach and Deborah Stout led a 2-day workshop in the Chuckwalla Wilderness for BLM Palm Springs Field Office staff. During this workshop, 11 BLM staff members learned how to survey using the CNPS/DFG combined Rapid Assessment and Relevé protocols. This workshop provided BLM Palm Springs staff with the tools needed to undertake vegetation assessment and mapping in wilderness areas that they manage.

The Chuckwalla Wilderness encompasses myriad vegetation types including creosote shrublands, desert wash scrublands and woodlands, and desert pavement habitats. Nine surveys were completed, four of which were conducted in rare plant communities including the Parkinsonia florida – Olneya tesota Woodland Alliance. Stand locations have been plotted in GIS and survey data entered into our ever-expanding database for use in future classification and mapping efforts. CNPS extends a special thanks to BLM staff for assisting in planning this successful workshop.

Workshop participants gather under a sunny sky to sample a wash scrubland community with California sagebrush (Artemisia californica). Photo by D. Stout

Immediately following this workshop, a second 1-day workshop was held in Orange County for the Irvine Ranch Conservancy staff and CNPS Chapter members. Twenty-one participants from the Conservancy, Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District, US Forest Service, and the Orange County and Riverside-San Bernardino Chapters. In addition to conducting surveys in rare alluvial scrub communities, CNPS staff forged new relationships with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy staff and renewed ties with southern California Chapter members. Vegetation Program staff held a similar workshop earlier in the year in a continued effort to train the public in sampling and mapping techniques, while strengthening ties to our distant southern California chapters. We are looking for additional funds to continue this important work.