Conducting natureserve conservation status assessments of floridas species of greatest conservation needstatus monitoring is a critical component of fish and wildlife conservation

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC) received a $1,865,768 State Wildlife Grants (SWG) formula grant (CFDA 15.634) from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 4, effective October 1, 2025, through December 31, 2028. The award supports two primary conservation initiatives focused on Florida's species of greatest conservation need (SGCN). The first component involves updating NatureServe Conservation Status Assessment state rankings (S-ranks) for a subset of Florida's SGCN, with particular emphasis on freshwater, terrestrial, and marine invertebrate species. This effort, conducted in partnership with the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, generates global and state rankings that the FFWCC uses to identify SGCN and prioritize management actions regionally and statewide.

The second major component addresses the black creek crayfish (state-threatened species recently proposed for federal listing) through occupancy surveys and life history research. With black creek crayfish populations threatened by invasive white tubercled crayfish in the St. Johns River Basin and declining habitat quality in remaining stronghold watersheds, this project will determine occupancy, life history characteristics, habitat preferences, environmental tolerances, and population structure necessary for implementing effective conservation strategies for this imperiled species.

IT provides information on species and habitat status response to conservation actions and vulnerability to current or future threats e.g. climate change sea level rise disease or human development and is the basis for adaptive management in conservation. Monitoring status and trend of floridas species of greatest conservation need sgcn is a required element of all state wildlife action plans and the natureserve conservation status assessment methodology master ET AL 2012 is one way to assess species vulnerability to extinction. The output is a global and state rank g and s rank which the FWC uses to identify sgcn and prioritize management actions within the state and regionally. Florida natural areas inventory conducts the rankings of floridas species. The goal of this project is to update the natureserve state s ranks for a subset of floridas sgcn focusing on freshwater terrestrial and marine invertebrates.occupancy determinates life history and management efficacy for the black creek crayfishthe state threatened black creek crayfish is only found in a few watersheds within the ST. Johns river basin in northeastern florida and was recently proposed for federal listing. Black creek crayfish have been extirpated from most of the black creek watershed by the white tubercled crayfish which was first recorded in the ST. Johns river basin in 2008. The black creek crayfish is still found in other nearby watersheds that have not been invaded by the white tubercled crayfish though they still face threats from declining habitat quality in these areas. Very little is known about the life history habitat preferences environmental tolerances and population structure of black creek crayfish though this information is necessary for implementing conservation strategies for this species. The purpose of the proposed study is to address these data gaps as well as continuing ongoing assessments of management strategies for white tubercled crayfish in the black creek basin.BAT monitoring for robust long term BAT conservationflorida is home to 13 resident BAT species six of which are designated as species of greatest conservation need sgcn. Of these two are federally listed as endangered and another is currently under review for federal protection. This project the long term BAT monitoring program ltbmp was established with previous SWG funding to monitor BAT populations across florida using standardized acoustic monitoring techniques. Through activities conducted for the ltbmp since 2018 an extensive statewide network of partner organizations and volunteers has been established to help conduct this monitoring work and a robust dataset of monitoring data has been collected. Funding requested here will be used to further involve partners continue this important monitoring work and expand the dataset. With this dataset the project team will now be able to conduct expanded statistical analyses to understand trends in numbers of bats and their distributions the factors affecting habitat use and seasonal and annual changes in activity. These results will provide insights into the health of florida BAT populations and make IT possible to create recommendations for strong management activities that will help improve the conservation of these important species.due to charater limit the remaining three abstracts are included in the uploaded document