Natural Areas Association (NAA) is an association of scientists and practitioners focused on the management of ecologically significant natural landscapes with the intent to protect biodiversity for current and future generations. Natural Areas News is is your trusted resource for current events, reliable science, conservation success, emerging challenges, best practices, and achievements of those who work daily to preserve natural areas.

Photo courtesy of Eva Horne / Konza Prairie LTER

A ‘Green Glacier’ of trees and shrubs is burying prairies, threatening ranchers and wildlife

A juggernaut unleashed by humans is grinding slowly across the Great Plains, burying some of the most threatened habitat on Earth beneath dense junipers and shrubland. Flint Hills rancher, Daniel Mushrush, estimates that his family has killed maybe 10,000 trees in the past three years. It’s a start. But many more trees still need to fall for the Mushrushes to save this 15,000 acres of rare tallgrass prairie.

The lesser prairie chicken is dying and Kansas experts say the last of the prairie will go with it

The lesser prairie chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) was listed as threatened in Kansas in 2022 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. At the time, officials estimated that 90% of the habitat the birds once inhabited — intact tracts of native grasses — had vanished. Experts say the species symbolizes intact grassland landscapes, and losing them would mean we’ve lost the connectivity of the landscape.

Photo courtesy of Rivers & Lands Conservancy

 Invasive stinknet dominates natural areas, posing threat to native habitats* 

Stinknet (Oncosiphon piluliferum) is an invasive plant posing a serious threat to our region’s native habitats while creating problems for land managers. Arizona first noted stinknet in the early 1990s and southern Nevada in the late 2010s. The small herbaceous annual plant ranges in height, from just a few inches to three feet, depending on conditions.

Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources

Plant not seen since 1911 rediscovered in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced that a population of Maryland senna (Senna marilandica), a rare plant not seen in Wisconsin since 1911, was rediscovered in Wisconsin. George Riggin, a trained volunteer for the DNR's Rare Plant Monitoring Program, and Bridget Rathman, DNR Habitat Biologist, spotted the plant. Almost 15% of Wisconsin's 2,366 native plant species are considered rare.

In Other News

• Seed sowing shifts native–exotic richness relationships in favor of natives during restoration

• Carper, Capito Applaud Senate Passage of Legislation to Bolster Wildlife Conservation

• Conservation Groups Defend Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument, Antiquities Act

• Why the Florida Wildlife Corridor couldn't save Split Oak Forest

• Assistant Secretary Newland Highlights Bison and Grasslands Restoration During New Mexico Visit

• Mapping Quaking Aspen Using Seasonal Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Composite Imagery across the Southern Rockies, USA

• U.S. advances review of lithium mine in Nevada amid concerns over endangered wildflower, Tiehm’s buckwheat plant (Eriogonum tiehmii)*

• Conservation Groups Applaud the Bureau of Land Management's New Rule that Modernizes Land Management

• Advancing Environmental Flows Science: Hindcasting and Forecasting Flow-Ecology Relationships

• Oklahoma’s Muscogee Nation prepares to co-manage Georgia’s first National Park

• Post-fire stabilization of thaw-affected permafrost terrain in northern Alaska

• President Biden signs proclamations protecting nearly 120,000 acres

• Petition aims to protect Columbia River Dunes flower, gray cat’s eye (Oreocarya leucophaea), in Washington

• Disentangling Ecosystem Necromass Dynamics for Biodiversity Conservation

• Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge announces proposal to remove invasive California fan palms, public review invited

• Federal Agencies Release Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on a Highway Right-of-Way Through Red Cliffs National Conservation Area

• Colorado Legislature Passes Bill Authorizing State Wildlife Agency To Study And Conserve Pollinators And Other Invertebrates
  

• Items with an asterisk may require a paid subscription to read*
• Items that are italicized represent academic titles

Funding Opportunities

Illinois Natural Areas Stewardship Grant Program

Deadline: June 14, 2024

National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program

Deadline: June 21, 2024

Arizona Plant Conservation and Restoration Management Grant

Deadline: June 28, 2024

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