Due to the uncertainty of future climatic patterns and species responses, enduring features of the landscape (geophysical settings) are appropriate targets of assessment, planning, and conservation. MoRAP will provide Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) partners with an initial, on-the-shelf enduring features dataset as an aid to assessment and planning. We will evaluate the quality of the information, and suggest avenues for improvement for the nation. We will evaluate existing approaches to conservation design using enduring features (e.g. Anderson et al. 2012) and complete a pilot design for at least one ecoregion.
Objectives
- Summarize and review currently available national enduring features datasets.
- Select a dataset for hotpots and representative conservation analysis (GAP-style analysis) by ecoregion (tentatively, EPA Level III ecoregions).
- Evaluate the quality of the data by comparing them to other enduring features information available for at least three areas (tentatively, deserts in Arizona, the Central Appalachians, and the Ozark Highland in Missouri).