How Can We Measure Our Conservation Successes?

Take a walk through any Hillsborough County ELAPP Nature Preserve and you’ll probably find evidence of recent land management activities like prescribed fire. We burn these nature preserves to improve and maintain wildlife habitats, reduce wildfire risk, and return nutrients to the soil. When a preserve doesn’t have a good source of native seed nearby, we plant vegetation and seeds to help the site's plant and animal communities thrive. In preserves where a lack of fire has caused the original scrub or sandhill communities to become overgrown, we perform hardwood reduction to remove the trees that have grown up through decades of fire exclusion.

We work hard to manage and restore our natural areas, but how do we know that our land management efforts are working?  Can we identify how these projects have benefited the plant and animal communities in our preserves?

Savannah milkweed, Asclepias pedicellata

That’s where the Environmental Lands Research Analysts Team (EL-RAT) comes in. EL-RAT has begun a series of plant and animal monitoring surveys including assessing gopher tortoise populations and collecting data about the diversity of listed plant species, reptiles, amphibians, and bats. The information gathered in these surveys lets land managers know that projects are leading to improvements in natural communities and also provides insight into how we can improve our management practices to provide the most benefit to the ecosystems under our care. 

When we’re assessing the condition of a natural area, we look for the presence of certain plant and animal species, often called indicator species. The number of frogs and diversity of frog species in an area can tell us how good the water quality in that habitat is, and assessing bat diversity can give us a good idea of the overall biodiversity of an area . Some native plants only grow in areas where prescribed fire is applied in a way that mirrors the naturally occurring fire cycle. Gopher tortoises can’t live in areas that haven’t been burned enough because they have trouble struggling through the thick brush that grows when fire is suppressed for too long a period of time. 

All of the data collected in these surveys will paint a useful picture for our land managers. Is what we’re doing working? Could we improve our practices to benefit these plants and animals even more? Or would it be better to re-work our plan and try something new in this particular preserve?

Leafless beaked orchid, Sacoila lanceolata

Hooded pitcherplant, Sarracenia minor

Data collected by EL-RAT won’t just be useful to Hillsborough County. It's also being shared with several other agencies and organizations, including groups that have helped fund some of the county's large-scope land management projects. These surveying efforts will help to inform a wide-reaching network of land managers about what works, what doesn’t, and the many ways in which we can help to restore and protect the delicate ecosystems of Florida. 

In upcoming Trailblazer Newsletters, we’ll explore these different surveys and the exciting technology that the EL-RAT team use to collect data and learn more about our natural surroundings. 

Snakemouth orchid, Pogonia ophioglossoides

Many-flowered grass pink, Calopogon multiflorus