Sewanee - The University of the South
OP-11: Biodiversity

The southern Cumberland Plateau region is considered a nationally important hot spot of biological diversity. The Natural Resource Defense Council included our region as part of their “Biogem” designations. Recently, the Open Space Institute in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy selected the southern Cumberland Plateau (including the Domain) as the initial focus area in the launch of their Southeast Resilient Landscapes Fund. The landscape of the Domain is considered to be among the most resilient in the southeast in its future ability to maintain species diversity in the face of climate change. One of our two old-growth cove forest sites on the Domain, Dick Cove, is a registered with US National Park Service as a National Natural Landmark. Our other old-growth forest site, Shakerag Hollow, was the recent subject of the prize-winning book, The Forest Unseen by Biology Professor David Haskell. Lost Cove is also adjacent to the Franklin State Forest and is part of the State's forest management's comprehensive plan.

Sewanee, and the Sewanee Environmental Institute, used GIS Remote sensing, the use of aerial imagery, and field surveys by students and faculty to find key habitat locations based on land types and subsequently registered them. These now exist as GIS shapeless. Flower

Habitats: sandstone outcrops ephemeral ponds stream corridors limestone outcrops caves old growth forest Species: salamanders bats plants (endangered species of buttercup)

With 13,000 acres, Sewanee is gratefully endowed with significant wildlife habitat. As such, we are also called towards stewardship of the wildlife which call the Domain home. The 2011 Domain Management Plan includes the specific goals of “managing habitats to enhance, protect, and promote biodiversity across the landscape” as well as “fostering ecological community that can be resilient to climate change.” The Main threats to biodiversity in Sewanee are habitat loss (e.g., conversion of native vegetation to other land covers), habitat fragmentation (e.g., by roads in natural areas), habitat degradation (e.g., loss of structural and functional diversity), non-native species (that may outcompete, prey on, or infect natives), pollution (e.g., by dumps, movement of sediment into waterways, etc), and over-harvesting (e.g., removal of top mammalian predators, over-digging of ginseng, etc). Thus, Sewanee is active in protecting sensitive areas that harbor particularly unique and sensitive biodiversity include Vernal pools, Streams, Upland sandstone outcrops, Limestone outcrops in coves, Caves, Old growth forests, Bluff edges. The Office of Domain Management uses quantifiable metrics such as Number of exotic species naturalized on the Domain, Percent cover of exotic species, Degree of fragmentation of habitat, Amount of sediment/other particulates entering streams, Number and types of roads through natural areas, Structure and composition of forests, and the Status of threatened, endangered, range-restricted, or endemic species to assess our biodiversity and wildlife protection program.