Nevada Natural Heritage Program
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
901 South Stewart Street, Suite 5002 • Carson City, Nevada 89701-5245
tel: (775) 684-2900 • fax: (775) 684-2909

Ecology at NvNHP

Ecology is a scientific discipline that studies the interactions of organisms with their environment. This differs from environmentalism, which is a political and philosophical movement to reduce impacts on the environment. These are often confused, as the discoveries of ecology are generally useful to the politics of the environmental movement. Conservation biology partially bridges the gap. It is a scientific discipline (gathering of testable and repeatable knowledge) but starts with the assumption that some parts of the landscape are worth conserving. Thus conservation biology asks questions like "if X is worth protecting, then what is the best way to protect it and what else might that protection entail?"

The Nevada Natural Heritage Program involves itself with ecology and conservation biology. We study what is happening with organisms over Nevada’s landscape (ecology), and when organisms or ecosystems are found to be at risk, then we study what can be done to reduce that risk (conservation biology). We gather verifiable information on these biological issues and serve as a scientific source to aid decisions by land managers. The politics and philosophy of the environmental movement are outside of our scope.

The primary work on ecology at NvNHP has to do with classifying and mapping plant communities. Plant communities are indicators of environmental conditions, both natural and human-imposed. Plant communities also form the basis of the habitat for associated species, both animals and plants. Therefore plant communities may well be the best tools for tracking ecosystem function and condition. Increasing our knowledge of plant communities across Nevada supports efforts on a variety of land management issues.

For classifying plant communities, we use the National Vegetation Classification (NVC). This classification has largely been developed by heritage programs across the country along with NatureServe and The Nature Conservancy. The NVC has also been endorsed by the Ecological Society of America and is in use as the standard for the Federal Geographic Data Committee, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Park Service, and others. The NVC is a hierarchical system with the highest level separating overall growth forms of plant communities (e.g. forests from shrublands). The lowest level (plant associations) separates plant communities by the dominant and co-dominant species (e.g. Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis / Elymus elymoides Shrubland from Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis / Poa secunda Shrubland). Even these can be further broken down by ranking the condition of the association: an Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis / Elymus elymoides Shrubland that has few native grasses and forbs and has been strongly invaded by cheatgrass might receive a D rank, while one with the abundant native grasses and forbs and with intact soil conditions (including biological crusts) might receive an A rank.

Over the first year and a half of ecological work at NvNHP, mapping has focused on data gathered from other agencies, such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Bureau of Land Management. While maintaining a tap on outside data will continue to be important, we will gradually increase data collection of our own. Data expansion will include on-the-ground sampling and remote sensing imagery. We will focus on communities that are rare across the landscape, are threatened, or simply have not yet been included in the NVC. Communities that are found to be severely rare or threatened will be added to our watch and at-risk tracking lists and locations will be added to the heritage database of rare and threatened species.

| NvNHP Ecology |

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