USNVC: Peer Review Meeting in Baltimore Oct 27-29, 2014

A team of vegetation ecologists who serve on the Ecological Society of America’s U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC) met in Baltimore Oct 27-29 to review a comprehensive set of mid-level vegetation types for the country.

The middle level units are based on regional species pools that have been sorted through biogeographic and ecological drivers (regional climate, topo-edaphic factors, and geologic substrates) of species composition and growth forms. The meeting focused on the macrogroup level.  A macrogroup is defined by “moderate sets of diagnostic plant species and diagnostic growth forms that reflect biogeographic differences in composition and sub-continental to regional differences in mesoclimate, geology, substrates, hydrology, and disturbance regimes.”

Beginning in late 2013, NatureServe staff drafted a description for ~160 macrogroups that covered all vegetation, from alpine to deserts to forests, grasslands and wetlands.  Then the ESA peer review board solicited peer review comments from over 60 peer reviewers, coordinating the process with Canadian NVC members.  NatureServe staff and ESA board members then collaborated to revise the descriptions, but flagged all macrogroups for which concepts were problematic.  Those macrogroups formed the core agenda for the Baltimore meeting, where seven NatureServe staff and 20 peer review board members met to go over issues and produce a resolution.  Based on that meeting, the macrogroup descriptions were revised and are type concepts are now essentially completed.

Next steps include a final review of the Group level, the level below macrogroup, and its integration with the lowest levels of the USNVC (alliance and association).  That work should be completed in spring of 2015.  From there, the USNVC partners will push for a full release of the USNVC in the fall of 2015.

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For those not familiar with the USNVC, here’s a bit of background.

Ecologists concerned with basic questions of ecosystem status, function and condition, have often struggled to identify a suitable classification of those systems, amidst the plethora of local, national or international options. Now a team of vegetation ecologists from the western Hemisphere, including key NatureServe staff, Member Programs, federal  partners of the U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC), and tropical ecologists, have forged an approach that is comprehensive for all terrestrial ecosystems and builds on the strengths of previous efforts, including those of European colleagues.  In addition, key federal agency scientists from the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), National Park Service (NPS), U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Land Management, and Natural Resources Conservation Service, and academic scientists from the Ecological Society of America have been providing extensive input and support throughout the process.

The USNVC classification is based on the “EcoVeg approach,” which was recently published in the journal Ecological Monographs.  EcoVeg is a physiognomic–floristic–ecological classification approach that applies to existing vegetation, both cultural (planted and dominated by human processes) and natural (spontaneously formed and dominated by non-human ecological processes). Using EcoVeg, the USNVC provides a rigorous and comprehensive framework that improves our ability to:

•  describe vegetation types at multiple thematic scales, from formations (biomes) to fine-scale associations (biotopes).

•  inventory vegetation and ecosystem patterns within and acrosslandscapes and ecoregions.

•  support evaluation and tracking of status and trends of ecosystems.

•  facilitate interpretation of long-term and short-term vegetation change.

•  track ecosystem responses to invasive species, land use, and climate change.

The authors of the publication include: Don Faber-Langendoen, Todd Keeler-Wolf, Del Meidinger, Dave Tart, Bruce Hoagland, Carmen Josse, Gonzalo Navarro, Serguei Ponomarenko, Jean-Pierre Saucier, Alan Weakley, and Patrick Comer.

Some of the classification information, currently managed in Biotics 5, is already available through natureserve.org/explorer and usnvc.org, with major releases of new information planned for the fall of 2015.  This information will be continually maintained through a peer review process guided by the Ecological Society of America’s Panel on Vegetation Classification, with oversight by the FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee.

In the U.S. federal and state partners are moving forward with applications. The revised USNVC is already being put to use. Examples include:

• Integration in Landfire’s new national ecosystems map;
• Update of vegetation maps in the NPS Great Lakes parks,
• USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis Program has a prototype key that assigns all forest plots across the eastern U.S. to USNVC types,
• The Minnesota and New Jersey Natural Heritage Programs are completing crosswalks or updates to their state version of the revised USNVC, and
• New Mexico is working to incorporate the USNVC into its State Wildlife Action Plan.