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Conservation partners, friends and family,
We want to share a bit of our work and accomplishments in early 2017.
Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter, and please do share it with others who are interested in conservation of Virginia’s biological diversity. And, don’t forget to keep up with us on Facebook.
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Big Year for Biological Inventory
In 2016, biologists from the inventory staff conducted more than 400 site visits and recorded data on 530 occurrences of natural heritage resources (rare species and significant natural communities). This is the most, by far, in the last 15 years, and the visits resulted in laying eyes on greater than 5 percent of all the natural heritage resource occurrences known in Virginia. For the inventory staff, this schedule demands long hours on the road and nights away from home, but these devoted, keen-eyed biologists are needed to find some of the most enigmatic natural communities and rare species.
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Reports on Rare Plant Surveys Submitted to VDACS
 Final reports on surveys conducted in 2016 for the federal and state listed plant species smooth coneflower (Echinacea laevigata, G2G3/S2/LE/LT) and shale barren rock cress (Boechera serotina, G2/S2/LE/LT) were submitted to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS).
Survey sites for both species were selected using species distribution models (SDM) developed by DCR’s Natural Heritage staff. Each species’ SDM output provides a map of suitable habitat areas where actual field surveys have not been conducted. In this case, unsurveyed sites with an 80 to 100 percent prediction of suitable habitat were targeted.
Smooth coneflower is endemic to the southeastern U.S. and is found in Virginia in the Piedmont and Ridge and Valley regions. Habitat includes open woodland and prairie-like habitat. Surveys were conducted in June, August and September in Botetourt, Campbell and Montgomery counties. No new populations of smooth coneflower were found.
Shale barren rock cress is an herb found only in Virginia and West Virginia in woodlands, shrublands and open rock outcrops classified as Central Appalachian Shale Barrens. Surveys were conducted in August and September in Alleghany, Augusta, Bath and Rockbridge counties, and three previously unknown populations were found. In addition, two new locations of the globally rare plant sword-leaf phlox (Phlox buckleyi, G2/S2) were found in Bath County, as well as a previously undiscovered globally rare Central Appalachian Xeric Shale Woodland vegetation community.
These projects were funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and VDACS.
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22-acre Addition to Grayson Glades Natural Area Preserve
A long-standing priority expansion at the Grayson Glades Natural Area Preserve, near Galax, was completed on Dec. 30. DCR’s Natural Heritage staff worked with landowners for nearly 15 years to develop this real estate transaction. In the end, DCR closed on the 22-acres with funds provided by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF). VDGIF and DCR work to conserve rare species habitat in Virginia.
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Soil Erosion Control at Clover Hollow Natural Area Preserve
During the first week of 2017, DCR’s Natural Heritage mountain region stewards began work to stop soil erosion at Clover Hollow Natural Area Preserve in Giles County. The focus was on a gully that likely originated from agricultural land use prior to acquisition by DCR. To reduce further soil loss, check-dams were built within the gully using locally abundant cedar logs and branches to reduce overland flows from runoff, trap sediment and enable natural re-vegetation.
The native warm season grasses, forbs and tree seedlings will quickly become established and stabilize the gully. Thinning and utilizing on-site cedar saplings provide the added benefit of increasing light availability to the native grassland community. Vegetation management such as cedar removal, using either mechanical means or prescribed fire, is essential for maintaining open grassland habitats in western Virginia.
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National Invasive Species Awareness Week and Website Update
In support of National Invasive Species Awareness Week, Feb. 27 – March 3, DCR Natural Heritage staff launched a revamped Virginia Invasive Species website. The site provides an introduction to invasive species issues and links to the best resources on the web. Visitors can also find guidance on how to map and report invasive species occurrences.
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Newly Documented Bee Species in Virginia
During the 2016 field season, zoologists continued extensive sampling of bees to better understand their diversity and distribution in Virginia. Sampling was widely distributed across the state and produced more than 2,500 specimens, with emphasis on the sandhills of the southeastern Coastal Plain. This habitat offers good bee diversity, has benefited from strategic land conservation and stewardship by the DCR Natural Heritage staff and its partners. Several rarely captured species were collected as were two new bee species never before known to exist in Virginia, both from Chub Sandhill Natural Area Preserve (Sussex County). Sampling in the mountains and valleys produced one state record from Augusta County, one from Grayson County and two from Pulaski County.
Sam Droege from the U.S. Geological Survey Bee Lab in Laurel, Maryland, helped determine that six bee species collected had never before been found in Virginia. Efforts to further understand bees in Virginia will continue in 2017 if funding can be secured.
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Melissodes tepaneca by Sam Droege, USGS-Bee Lab
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Birds and Bees of Radford Army Ammunition Plant
During the 2016 field season, zoologists conducted a study of the bees and birds of the Radford Army Ammunition Plant (RAAP) in Dublin, Virginia (Pulaski County). The RAAP property is dominated by warm-season grasslands and other early successional habitats that are known to support rare and declining species in Virginia. This site hosted the last known populations in Virginia of a butterfly, Regal Fritillary (Speyeria idalia, G3/S1), and was the last known breeding location of Henslow’s Sparrow (Ammodramus henslowii, G4/S1B). Neither species was detected during this project, signaling that they may no longer exist at the site. Sixty-seven species of birds were identified to be living at RAAP during the breeding season. This included several species associated with early successional habitats including the field sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, prairie warbler and eastern meadowlark.
Bee surveys revealed 81 distinct species at RAAP but no rare species were detected. Although no rare species were found, efforts to better understand bee distribution in Virginia may lead to the detection of rare species. It appears at least two species never before recorded in Virginia were identified. A third bee now identified as Melissodes near bimaculata does not match any known species in the region and will undergo DNA analysis to learn more about its identity. Further surveys at RAAP and in other native grassland sites are warranted to better understand Virginia’s bees.
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Melissodes near bimaculata (female), by Sam Droege, USGS-Bee Lab
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Stream Cleanup at Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve
On Feb 18, stewardship staff in the mountain region worked with 21 Virginia Master Naturalists to clean up a first-order stream, (i.e., small tributary stream) that originates within Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve. This stream flows into a reach of the Pigg River close to two populations of the endangered Roanoke log perch (Percina rex, G1G2/S1S2). Volunteers and stewards removed dozens of tires, appliances and bags of miscellaneous litter that had accumulated over many years before the preserve became Virginia’s 62nd preserve.
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Bull Run Bat Survey Submitted
After a successful 2016 bat survey season at Bull Run Mountain Natural Area Preserve in Fauquier and Prince William counties, a final report was submitted summarizing the results of the acoustic (microphone-computerized detection of bat species by recordings of bat calls made in flight) and mist net surveys. Four species were confirmed by mist net captures, including a single Northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis, G2G3/S1S3/LT/PT), a species heavily impacted by White Nose Syndrome and recently listed as federally threatened. Other species captured included big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), Eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis), and evening bat (Nycticeius humeralis). Acoustic surveys added three more species as likely residents of the preserve, including silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans), Hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) and the state endangered tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus, G3/S1S3/NL/PE).
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Longleaf Pine Planting Objective Met on Two Southeastern Region Natural Area Preserves
DCR’s Natural Heritage staff completed this winter’s longleaf pine restoration objectives by establishing thousands of native longleaf seedlings; 48,634 seedlings planted on 120 acres at Antioch Pines Natural Area Preserve (APNAP) in December and 30,000 planted in February on 30 acres at South Quay Sandhills Natural Area Preserve. This brings DCR’s total longleaf pine restoration for the 2016-17 planting season to 150 acres. Since such work began 10 years ago, a total of 1,200 acres of longleaf pine have been restored on state natural area preserves.
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Heritage Staff Volunteers Remove Invasive Ivy in James River Park System
On March 22, eight DCR Natural Heritage Program volunteers participated in an invasive species removal project in Richmond’s James River Park System. With coordination from the DCR Natural Areas Protection Manager and the James River Park System Volunteer Coordinator, volunteers selected a particularly overgrown area near Reedy Creek Trail and removed English ivy (Hedera helix) from about 40 trees.
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Heritage Staff Conducts College Outreach
 On March 22, DCR’s Chesapeake Bay Region Steward Zach Bradford presented at the 13th annual J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College Science Night. Local educators, scientists, and organizations provided a wide variety of hands-on demonstrations for attendees. Bradford introduced DCR’s cooperative longleaf pine restoration efforts and illustrated fire adaptations, the importance of the longleaf pine ecosystem to numerous other plants and animals, and some basics of prescribed fire.
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Prescribed Fire Update
Natural Heritage, with the help of many partners, conducted several prescribed burns in the first quarter of 2017 to manage habitat for rare species populations and fire-dependent natural communities. Here is a roundup.
- In February, DCR Natural Heritage and state parks staff, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries burned 78-acres of native grassland and wet prairie at Cowbane Wet Prairie Natural Area Preserve and TNC’s adjacent South River Preserve in Augusta County. The project area included two rare wetland communities supporting habitat for seven plant species rare in Virginia.
- In February, Natural Heritage and Staunton River State Park staff completed a 58-acre prescribed burn at Difficult Creek Natural Area Preserve in Halifax County. This burn was done to restore an open, Southern Piedmont hardpan forest natural community and was a critical next step following a summer-fall 2016 timber harvest during which loblolly pines were removed to provide growing space for native oaks, hickories and shortleaf pines. Difficult Creek is home to 15 species of rare plants, including the federally endangered smooth coneflower (Echinacea laeviagata, G2G3 S2 LE/LT).
- In March, Natural Heritage, with help from the Department of Forestry, DGIF and The Nature Conservancy, burned a 107-acre longleaf pine restoration site at Chub Sandhill Natural Area Preserve in Sussex County. This is DCR’s oldest longleaf pine restoration project, with seedlings established in 2007 and prescribed fire applied every two years since 2009. On the same day, this interagency team burned two other longleaf pine restoration areas, one at Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge and one on private land in Isle of Wight County.
- In March, Natural Heritage Mountain and Shenandoah Valley region stewardship staff, with help from the U.S.D.A. Forest Service and a volunteer, burned a small patch of Piedmont Prairie at Grassy Hill Natural Area Preserve in Franklin County. The area has healthy native populations of smooth coneflower and Carolina thistle (Cirsium carolinianum) (G5/S1).
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Presentation Roundup
DCR’s Natural Heritage staff conducted, hosted and helped with various presentations to educate citizens on its mission, conservation role and activities. If your organization is interested in scheduling a presentation, call 804-786-7951. Here’s a round-up of recent presentations.
- On Jan. 5, Natural Heritage Stewardship Biologist Kevin Heffernan gave a presentation to Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) Wildlife Bureau staff about threats posed by invasive wavyleaf grass (Oplismenus undulatifolius) to Virginia’s forests and native wildlife.
- On Jan. 12, Staff Botanist John Townsend gave a presentation entitled “Discovering Mosses and Liverworts, The Unsung Flora of Virginia” to the Pocahontas Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society.
- At the Jan. 19 meeting of DCR’s Friends of The Cedars volunteer group in Jonesville, Virginia, Dr. Doug Ogle, a retired professor of Biology at Virginia Highlands Community College in Abingdon, gave a presentation about the biogeography, ecology and history of part of Lee County called “The Cedars.”
- On Jan. 20, Natural Heritage Stewardship Manager Rick Myers gave a presentation at the Old Dominion University Biology Department weekly seminar for students and faculty. “Natural Community and Rare Species Habitat Restoration on Virginia’s State Natural Area Preserves” provided an overview of DCR’s regional approach for managing the system’s 63 preserves and 56,000 acres of protected lands.
- On Jan. 30, Natural Heritage staff presented at the Virginia Association of Forest Health Professionals Conference in Richmond. DCR Longleaf Pine Restoration Specialist Rebecca Wilson covered longleaf pine history in Virginia and the Southeast, fire ecology, and the longleaf restoration work on hundreds of acres of protected lands. Stewardship Biologist Kevin Heffernan presented the latest information on the wavyleaf grass (Oplismenus undulatifolius) invasion, how it threatens native forests, how to identify it in the field, mapping and reporting tools, and how best to control its spread.
- On Feb. 9, Natural Heritage Data and GIS Specialist Danielle Kulas gave a presentation on the Virginia Natural Heritage Program’s use of mobile data collection technology through ArcGIS online and the collector app. Members of several Natural Heritage programs from the Southeast and NatureServe staff attended.
- On March 6, Chesapeake Bay Region Steward Zach Bradford gave a presentation entitled “Your Virginia Natural Heritage Program” to the Northern Neck Chapter of the National Audubon Society.
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