To understand the status and distribution of elusive plant species in the Lower Athabasca region of Alberta, the Rare Plants project, led by Dr. Scott Nielsen at the University of Alberta, has designed techniques for surveying these rare species. The project is using a modeling and adaptive sampling approach to map habitats where rare plants are most likely to be found, and that information is then used to prioritize sampling in those areas.

The ABMI’s core biodiversity monitoring program tracks changes in groups of common plants and animals to understand how their populations might change over time. As well as measuring trends in the biota, we also measure a variety of habitat characteristics and human footprint to assess how these measures change over time. By combining these monitoring techniques we can identify relationships among human land use, habitat, and species abundance.

This core biodiversity monitoring program isn’t, however, optimized for assessing changes in the populations of species that are rare or elusive—these species often aren’t fully captured by core monitoring efforts. The Rare Plants project was designed to fill this gap.

One of the challenges of monitoring rare species is that we often know very little about what types of habitat they prefer or their geographic distribution. The Rare Plants project is improving our understanding of rare plants’ status, habitat preferences, and geographic distribution in the Lower Athabasca Region.