Vernal Pool Mapping & Species Distribution in the Rogue River Valley
- Andy Zundel
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Here are two reports covering vernal pool lidar mapping vernal pool species distribution work in the Rogue River Valley.
Mapping and Assessment of Mounded Vernal Pool Habitat in the Rogue River Valley of Southwest Oregon
Authors: Keith Perchemlides, Groundtruth Ecological, and Cam Patterson, CC Patterson & Associates for the US Fish and Wildlife Service Date: 2023
The Rogue River Valley of southwestern Oregon hosts a unique and beautiful complex of vernal pool and ephemeral wetland habitats associated with low-permeability soils and mounded landform topography (Johnson 1993; USFWS 2012; Perchemlides et al. 2020). These mounded vernal wetlands occur across grassland, oak, and shrub vegetation types and provide essential habitat for native plants and animals, including specialized rare, endemic, and federally listed species. Land use practices from the 1800’s through present have caused widespread loss and degradation of these habitats through development, agriculture, fragmentation, topographic and hydrologic alterations, fire exclusion, and the spread of invasive weeds (USFWS 2012; Perchemlides et al. 2020). We estimate that less than 25% of the historic mounded vernal wetlands in the Rogue Valley remain as functional habitat, and none have escaped substantial impacts to hydrology, native plant communities, or ecosystem processes.
Photo credit: Keith Perchemlides, Groundtruth Ecological, 2024
Vernal pool on outlier mounded landform, Bureau of Land Management site near Trail, Oregon, February 2024.
Vernal Pool Recovery Species Distribution Mapping and Surveys in the Rogue River Valley of Southwest Oregon
Authors: Keith Perchemlides, Groundtruth Ecological, Sam Friedman, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Sean Prive, The Understory Initiative Date: 2024
This report presents methods and results from a US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) funded cooperative agreement project to update and improve understanding of the distribution of vernal pool threatened and endangered recovery species in the Rogue River Valley, Jackson County, Oregon: vernal pool fairy shrimp, Branchinecta lynchi, large-flowered wooly meadowfoam, Limnanthes pumila ssp. grandiflora, and Cook’s desert parsley, Lomatium cookii. The purpose of this work is to inform ongoing USFWS and collaborator efforts towards species and habitat recovery. The overall project goals were (1)
to create complete and up-to-date map layers compiling all known location data for occurrences of each recovery species, and (2) to initiate new surveys based on this mapping and designed to fill knowledge gaps in their current distribution and habitat associations.