Prioritization of Carolina Bays as Mitigation Projects from a Herpetofaunal Perspective

Carolina bays are landform features of the southeastern United States that contain isolated depressional wetlands. These unique ecosystems are particularly valuable for herpetofauna and are at risk of being extirpated from the landscape because of recent legal developments. There are few available inventories of these landform features and associated wetlands, most notably the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources inventory. No known peer reviewed published inventory exists for North Carolina, which contains a high concentration of Carolina bays in the southeastern coastal plain. Wetland inventories offer planners and landscape managers a source of information that can be integrated with other information to aid in rapid natural resource assessment and planning. This research is designed to develop a methodology that directs limited resources and funds towards Carolina bays that contain attributes necessary to provide habitat, refuge, and hibernacula for general herpetofauna while meeting regulatory needs. The implications of the research are that it uses existing data and builds upon them to prioritize Carolina bays while still being generalizable to other regions containing depressional isolated wetlands. By not using specific organisms, the research is intended to serve as a tool to direct efforts to locales where ground based surveys and truthing can be conducted for target species.