Federal Register, Volume 76, Number 149, August 3, 2011, Pages 46595-47054 Page: 46,639
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Federal Register/Vol. 76, No. 149 /Wednesday, August 3, 2011 /Rules and Regulations
I, TDEC 2010) for all colonies
documenting whether they have
persisted over time, changed
dramatically in abundance, or are
threatened by natural or human-caused
factors, are adequate for judging
whether the colonies should be
considered self-sustaining. Using these
data we have determined that 31 out of
the total 35 colonies are self-sustaining,
19 of which are the colonies described
above as secure. We discuss the
available data for each colony below
under the subheading Recovery Action
(5): Monitor colonies and conduct
management activities, if necessary, to
maintain the recovered state in each
colony.
The current recovery plan identifies
six primary actions necessary for
recovering Echinacea tennesseensis:
(1) Continue systematic searches for
new colonies;
(2) Secure each colony;
(3) Provide a seed source
representative of each natural colony;
(4) Establish new colonies;
(5) Monitor colonies and conduct
management activities, if necessary, to
maintain the recovered state in each
colony; and
(6) Conduct public education projects.
Each of these recovery actions has
been accomplished. The Service entered
into a cooperative agreement with TDEC
in 1986, as authorized by section 6 of
the Act, for the conservation of
endangered and threatened plant
species, providing a mechanism for
TDEC to acquire Federal funds that have
supported much of the work described
here. The State of Tennessee and other
partners have provided matching funds
in order to receive funding from the
Service under this agreement.
Recovery Action (1): Continue
Systematic Searches for New Colonies
There were eight colonies of
Echinacea tennesseensis known to exist
when the recovery plan was completed
(Service 1989, pp. 3-7). TDEC and its
contractors conducted searches of cedar
glades, identified through the use of
aerial photography and topographic
maps, during the late 1980s through
1990 and found five previously
unknown colonies of Echinacea
tennesseensis (TDEC 1991, p. 1). Two of
these colonies were considered
additions to the Vine population (TDEC
1991, p. 2), or population 3 as described
in the recovery plan (Service 1989, pp.
4-5). One colony was considered an
addition to the Mount View population
(TDEC 1991, p. 2), or population 1 of the
recovery plan (Service 1989, p. 3). A
fourth colony was considered anaddition to the Couchville population
(TDEC 1991, p. 3), or population 5 of the
recovery plan (Service 1989, p. 7). The
fifth colony was smaller, not in a natural
setting, and not assigned to any of the
recovery plan populations in the TDEC
report (1991, p. 2). Other colonies have
been discovered during the course of
surveys conducted in the cedar glades of
middle Tennessee, and the number of
extant natural colonies now totals 15. A
summary of the currently known
populations (as well as the natural and
introduced colonies they are comprised
of) is provided in Table 1 above, and in
the discussion concerning recovery
action number (5). Because systematic
searches for new colonies have been
conducted since the completion of the
recovery plan and have led to the
discovery of previously unknown
colonies, we consider this recovery
action to be completed.
Recovery Action (2): Secure Each
Colony
We have assessed the security of each
Echinacea tennesseensis colony based
on observations about threats and
defensibility ranks reported in the 1996
status survey of this species (TDEC
1996, Appendix I) and information in
our files concerning protection actions,
such as construction of fences. We
consider 14 of the 16 colonies within
DSNAs to be secure. The only
exceptions to this determination are
colonies 2.4 and 2.7, which lie within
portions of the extensive Cedars of
Lebanon State Forest DSNA that have
been threatened by past outdoor
recreational vehicle (ORV) use or are
generally degraded cedar glade habitat.
The State of Tennessee's Natural Area
Preservation Act of 1971 (T.C.A. 11-
1701) protects DSNAs from vandalism
and forbids removal of endangered and
threatened species from these areas.
TDEC monitors these sites and protects
them as needed through construction of
fences or placement of limestone
boulders to prevent illegal ORV access.
We do not consider secure the nine
colonies that exist only on private land
and are not under some form of recovery
protection agreement. The introduced
population at the Stones River National
Battlefield DSNA consists of three
secured colonies requiring no protective
management, as access is controlled by
the National Park Service (NPS). The
site where these colonies are located
became a DSNA in 2003.
The recovery plan states that
Echinacea tennesseensis will be
considered recovered when there are "at
least five secure wild populations, each
with three self-sustaining colonies of at
least a minimal size." There are now 19secure, self-sustaining colonies of E.
tennesseensis distributed among six
populations (see Table 1 above),
fulfilling the recovery plan intentions of
establishing a sufficient number and
distribution of secure populations and
colonies to remove the risk of extinction
for this species within the foreseeable
future. Therefore, we consider this
recovery action completed.
Recovery Action (3): Provide a Seed
Source Representative of Each Natural
Colony
The Missouri Botanical Garden
(MOBOT), an affiliate institution of the
Centers for Plant Conservation (CPC),
collected accessions of seeds from each
of the six populations currently in
existence during 1994 (Albrecht 2008a
pers. comm.) and from four of those
populations during 2010 (Albrecht
2010, pers. comm.). This collection is
maintained according to CPC guidelines
(Albrecht 2008b, pers. comm.). Five of
the accessions taken by MOBOT were
provided to the National Center for
Genetic Resource Preservation (NCGRP)
in Fort Collins, Colorado, for long-term
cold storage. The NCGRP protocol is to
test seed viability every 5 years for
accession, and MOBOT also tests seed
viability on a periodic basis and collects
new material for accessions every 10 to
15 years (Albrecht 2008b, pers. comm.).
While these accessions do not contain
seed from every unique colony, they
represent each of the populations of
Echinacea tennesseensis. These
accessions provide satisfactory material
should establishment of colonies from
reintroductions or additional
introductions become necessary in the
future, as Baskauf et al. (1994, pp. 184-
186) concluded that there is a low level
of genetic differentiation among
populations of E. tennesseensis and the
origin of seeds probably is not a critical
concern for establishing new
populations. Therefore, we consider this
recovery action completed.
Recovery Action (4): Establish New
Colonies
TDEC (2006, pp. 3-6) reported
flowering stem counts for 21 introduced
colonies, but we have eliminated two of
these from our analysis of the current
status of Echinacea tennesseensis. One
of these excluded colonies was
introduced into a privately owned glade
well outside of the known range of the
species in Marshall County, consists of
only a few vegetative stems, and is of
doubtful viability. The other introduced
colony that we excluded is located in
Rutherford County, approximately 7
miles from the nearest E. tennesseensis
population, and is believed to containhybrids with E. simulata. Hybridization
46639
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United States. Office of the Federal Register. Federal Register, Volume 76, Number 149, August 3, 2011, Pages 46595-47054, periodical, August 3, 2011; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc52326/m1/53/?rotate=270: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.