Conclusion: An action plan for coastal plain wetland conservation. Toward a continental conservation strategy

Abstract

Coastal plain wetlands support some of the greatest concentrations of rare plants in eastern North America, and yet the rate of habitat destruction resulting from ,drainage, damming, filling, and water quality degradation appears to be out-pacing current protection efforts. To reverse this trend, advances need to be made on several t¥onts: (1) intensify inventories of rare species and exemplary natural communities to determine rangewide status and distribution; (2) use status and location information to establish site protection priorities; (3) protect critical sites from existing threats; (4) increase public awareness of coastal plain resources; and (5) conduct ecological research and monitoring to guide successful management. Fhe goal of this broad-based integrated effort is to protect a full measure of the biological and ecological .diversity represented in coastal plain wetlands. Before we address each conservation action in greater detail, a working definition of the term 'coastal plain wetlands' is needed. Our definition is rather restrictive, connoting natural freshwater oligotrophic wetlands which contain, at least, a modest complement of plants confined to, or characteristic of, the Atlantic coastal plain physiographic region (Canadian Maritime Provinces to the Gulf Coast of Texas). Coastal plain wetlands usually have both strongly acidic soils and pronounced water level fluctuations to which the coastal plain flora and fauna have become adapted. Seasonal ponds, lake shores, peatlands, wet flatwoods, and some river shores support coastal plain wetland vegetation. Wetlands in Ontario, Michigan, and elsewhere can be characterized as coastal plain wetlands if they support disjunct populations of plants typically found on the coastal plain. Excluded by this working definition are eutrophic to mesotrophic wetland communities such as tidal marshes and bottomland hardwood forests.