B.C. Conservation Data Centre: What's New

For the 2011/2012 ranking and list changes for species and ecological communities, visit the Endangered Species and Ecosystems Changes web page.

April 2012

BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer Enhancement!

In response to user feedback the Conservation Data Centre routinely enhances the capacity of BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer. In 2010 the CDC conducted a survey of its clients, including resource ministries and the resource professional community to guide future improvements to our services. The CDC released a number of enhancements in spring 2011 in response to client feedback. The spring 2012 release contains further enhancements in response to that survey.

Improved user-friendly terms for searches.
Distinction between plants and animals in search results.
Inclusion of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) designation as a search criterion under Legal Designation.
Addition of Land Use Objectives (e.g., for Ecosystem Based Management on the coast) as a search criterion under Legal Designation for ecological communities.
Reformatting of the Summary Reports and Conservation Status Reports to make them more user friendly.
Addition of an auto-complete function for the Species Name or Ecological Community Name search boxes.
Enhanced and expanded species habitat search capability.
Complete revision of the categories in the Ecosystem Groups search criterion to ensure consistency with recent publications by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
Improved species and ecological communities search pages so it is easier to tell which page you are on.
Addition of clickable maps for easier searches by Forest District or Regional District.
Addition of Grasshoppers and Related Insects, Spiders (partial list), liverworts and hornworts to the species groups represented.

2012 Taxonomy and Rank Updates

As part of standard business, the BC Conservation Data Centre reviews and releases updates of Conservation Status Ranks of selected species and ecological communities annually and updates to species taxonomy updates including the addition of any new species found in BC.

The 2012 CDC changes in taxonomy and Provincial Status Ranks for species and ecosystems are now available through BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer (BCSEE). Note that BCSEE is the provincial standard (Resource Inventory Standards Committee - RISC) for scientific names, English names and species codes (RISC codes) for animals (vertebrates and invertebrates).

Details of the 2012 taxonomy and rank changes can be found on the Endangered Species and Ecosystems Changes web page under the heading: 2011/12 Changes. http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/atrisk/changes.htm.

The following is a brief summary of those changes:

Zoology Data

Birds: A subset of the birds was assessed this year with only a few resulting changes in status.
Fish: Many fish were assessed for the first time this year. These are species that have been divided into several populations using the methods and recommendations of Pollard (2009), available at Ecosystems Changes web link above. There were a few small adjustments made to ranks as a result of the adoption of updated ranking methods.
Mammals: There were a few name changes to English and Scientific names; please see the Excel spreadsheet for details on these (available at Ecosystems Changes web link above).
Orthoptera (Grasshoppers): We established preliminary status ranks for many grasshopper species. Due to the preliminary nature, they have not yet been placed on the red or blue lists yet. Hopefully this will provide an incentive for more research on this group!
Reptiles: We reviewed the reptiles this year resulting in rank changes for two species. There were a number of changes to English names of the reptiles and amphibians as a result of adopting a new standard reference for British Columbia. The standard reference is now Crother (ed.) (2008), one that is endorsed by a number of the major North American herpetological groups.
Spiders: The spiders of BC have been added as a reference list. The Conservation Status Ranks have not been assessed; therefore all have a rank of “SNR” (not ranked).

Botany Data

A total of 125 liverworts and one hornwort were added to the BC flora in 2012, following the taxonomy published in: Stotler, R. and B. Crandall-Stotler. 1977. A checklist of liverworts and hornworts of North America. The Bryologist. 76:405-428.

Subnational Ranks have not yet been assigned for these plants, but will be added as information on the distribution, abundance and risk status of these taxa becomes available.

Mosses

There were five taxonomic and/or name changes; one species was removed because it was unconfirmed as a valid species.

Vascular Plants

Fifty-nine vascular plants were added to the BC flora list, including 29 exotic species. Some additions were the result of new collections, while others were the result of re-identification of herbarium specimens.
There were 108 Scientific name changes and three English name changes.
Provincial Conservation Status Ranks were reviewed and adjusted for 21 taxa. The 59 additions were also assessed and assigned ranks, as well as 33 taxa resulting from taxonomic lumps and splits. In addition, 9 taxa were assessed but there was no change to the ranks.
Thirteen plants were removed from the BC flora because their names had been misapplied or the collections on which the reports were based were re-identified as other species.

Ecological Community Data

Revisions to all ecological communities in the Boreal White and Black Spruce (BWBS) biogeoclimatic zone were completed, to be consistent with the revised classification published by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (see LMH 65).
Eight new ecological communities were added, including six from the new BWBS classification.
We completed revisions to ecological community names to be consistent with current plant species taxonomy.
246 new Element Occurrences are now available on the Conservation Data Centre Mapping Service and i-map.
Updates and new information are available in the Community Summary and Conservation Status reports for over 100 more ecological communities.
There was a rank change for one ecological community (Danthonia intermedia / Cladina rangiferina).

Details of the 2012 taxonomy and rank changes can be found at: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/atrisk/changes.htm.

May 2011

Based on feedback from our previously sent out Survey regarding CDC online tools, an enhanced version of BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer is now available. Some improvements include:

New Quick Search buttons for Red-List, Red- and Blue-List, SARA List and Conservation Framework Priorities 1, 2 & 3
Synonyms of species are now automatically searched. Synonyms will soon also include previous names after a name change
Ability to select more than one species or ecosystems group
Ability to search for species and ecosystems by Provincial Status (S-Rank) and species by Global Status (G-Rank)
Ability to search for species included under the “Migratory Birds Convention Act” under Legal search
Ability to generate a list of species native to BC
Ability to generate a list of ecological communities endemic or probably endemic to BC
Ability to select more than one Conservation Framework Priority
Ability to search by Municipality for ecological communities and animals (plants coming soon)
A BEC Zone map has been added to the Biogeoclimatic distribution search
New “Images” section added to the Reports and References page, searches our CDC library of images and Google Images automatically. Please check back often, and images are being added over time
A map has been added to the BC Species Summary and Community Summary illustrating in which Regional Districts a species or ecological community occurs (link from Results page)
A link has been added to E-Fauna on the Reports and References page and a link to lichens in E-Flora
Related Concepts (Other Community Name, Citation, Relationship) has been added to the BC Communities Summaries