Identifying areas for protection

In a fashion analogous to Noss and Harris' [1] nodes, networks, and MUMs, two types of areas important for conservation were identified (Figure 1).

• Core habitat - An area identified as core habitat combines habitat for viable populations of rare plants and animals and supports one or more exemplary communities. Protection of core habitat has the highest priority for biodiversity conservation in Massachusetts.

• Supporting natural landscape - An area identified as supporting natural landscape is important to protecting core habitat, even though it may not sustain viable populations of rare plants and animals or support an exemplary community. Four types of areas provide this type of support:
  1. Core habitat buffers,

  2. Connections (corridors) between core habitats,

  3. Areas necessary to buffer impact of important ecological processes, e.g., flooding or fire, and

  4. Large, undeveloped patches of land.

Figure 1: The final map produced by the Massachusetts BioMap project.