As part of a multi-state effort to improve the incorporation of plant-specific components and plant conservation strategies into the state wildlife action plans, this project provides information on Michigan’s rare flora that would promote the role of plants by focusing on climate change and additional tools to assist the state WAP. This project was designed to complement similar efforts taking place in North Dakota, New Jersey, Montana, and Colorado. The first component of this project was comprised of determining climate change vulnerabilities for a set of priority rare plant taxa and additional species important to wildlife as suggested by DNR biologists. The second component of the project consisted of augmenting the landscape features crosswalk created by the state WAP by expanding the crosswalk to include the state’s 420 listed rare taxa. The third basic component of the project was a spatial analysis to aid in highlighting conservation gaps to assist in identifying potential future priority areas and to augment the information assembled in the expanded landscape features crosswalk.
