NY NHP Important Areas - Natural Communities

Natural Community Important Areas (IA) for NY Natural Heritage Program Element Occurences in the Hudson River Valley: Important Areas are lands and waters that support the continued presence and quality of known populations of rare animals and rare plants, or of documented examples of rare or high-quality ecological communities. Important Areas include the specific locations where the animals, plants, and/or ecological communities have been observed, but go beyond these to also include additional habitat for the rare animal and plant populations, including areas which may be used by rare animals for breeding, nesting, feeding, roosting, or over-wintering; and to include areas that support the natural ecological processes critical to maintaining the habitats of these rare animal and plant populations, or critical to maintaining these significant communities. IAs are generated using GIS Important Area spatial models (IA models) applied to occurrences of rare plants and animals and significant natural communities in the New York Natural Heritage database, or applied to observation locations of other species obtained from other sources. IA models are specific to a species or species group, and are based on the life histories and habitats of that species or species group; for communities, models are based on the community type’s size and natural ecological processes.