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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 170 / Tuesday, September 7, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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United States, and we are able to identify areas that meet the definition of critical habitat. Therefore, because none of the circumstances enumerated in our regulations at 50 CFR 424.12a1 have been met and because the Secretary has not identified other circumstances for which this designation of critical habitat would be not prudent, we have determined that the designation of critical habitat is prudent for the Miami tiger beetle.
Physical or Biological Features Essential to the Conservation of the Species In accordance with section 35Ai of the Act and regulations at 50 CFR
424.12b, in determining which areas we will designate as critical habitat from within the geographical area occupied by the species at the time of listing, we consider the physical or biological features that are essential to the conservation of the species and that may require special management considerations or protection. The regulations at 50 CFR 424.02 define physical or biological features essential to the conservation of the species as the features that occur in specific areas and that are essential to support the lifehistory needs of the species, including, but not limited to, water characteristics, soil type, geological features, sites, prey, vegetation, symbiotic species, or other features. A feature may be a single habitat characteristic or a more complex combination of habitat characteristics.
Features may include habitat characteristics that support ephemeral or dynamic habitat conditions. Features may also be expressed in terms relating to principles of conservation biology, such as patch size, distribution distances, and connectivity. For example, physical features essential to the conservation of the species might include gravel of a particular size required for spawning, alkaline soil for seed germination, protective cover for migration, or susceptibility to flooding or fire that maintains necessary earlysuccessional habitat characteristics.
Biological features might include prey species, forage grasses, specific kinds or ages of trees for roosting or nesting, symbiotic fungi, or a particular level of nonnative species consistent with conservation needs of the listed species.
The features may also be combinations of habitat characteristics and may encompass the relationship between characteristics or the necessary amount of a characteristic essential to support the life history of the species.
In considering whether features are essential to the conservation of the species, we may consider an appropriate
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quality, quantity, and spatial and temporal arrangement of habitat characteristics in the context of the lifehistory needs, condition, and status of the species. These characteristics include, but are not limited to, space for individual and population growth and for normal behavior; food, water, air, light, minerals, or other nutritional or physiological requirements; cover or shelter; sites for breeding, reproduction, or rearing or development of offspring;
and habitats that are protected from disturbance.
We derive the specific physical or biological features essential for the Miami tiger beetle from studies of this species habitat, ecology, and life history as described below. Additional information can be found in the final listing rule published in the Federal Register on October 5, 2016 81 FR
68985.
Space for Individual and Population Growth and for Normal Behavior The Miami tiger beetle is endemic to pine rockland habitat within the Northern Biscayne Pinelands of the Miami Rock Ridge in Miami-Dade County in South Florida. Descriptions of this habitat and its associated native plant species are provided in the proposed listing rule published on December 22, 2015 80 FR 79533 see Habitat section. Additional discussion may be found in the final listing rule published on October 5, 2016 81 FR
68985. The Miami tiger beetle requires open or sparsely vegetated sandy areas within pine rockland habitat for thermoregulation regulation of body temperature, foraging, reproduction, and larval development.
As a group, tiger beetles Coleoptera:
Cicindelidae occupy ephemeral habitats where local extinction from habitat loss or degradation is common, so dispersal to establish new populations in distant habitat patches is a likely life history strategy for most species Knisley 2015a, p. 10.
Therefore, individuals of the species must be sufficiently abundant and occur within an appropriate dispersal distance to adjacent suitable habitat so they can repopulate areas following local extirpations. Barriers to dispersal can disrupt otherwise normal metapopulation dynamics and contribute to imperilment.
Development and agriculture have reduced pine rockland habitat by 90
percent in mainland south Florida. Pine rockland habitat decreased from approximately 183,000 ac 74,000 ha in the early 1900s to only 3,707 ac 1,500
ha in 2014 Possley et al. 2014, p. 154.
The largest remaining intact pine
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rockland approximately 5,716 ac 2,313
ha is Long Pine Key in Everglades National Park Everglades. Outside of the Everglades, less than 2 percent of pine rocklands on the Miami Rock Ridge remain, and much of what is left are small remnants scattered throughout the Miami metropolitan area, isolated from other natural areas Herndon 1998, p. 1; URS Corporation Southern 2007, p.
1.
The extreme rarity of high-quality pine rockland habitats supporting the Miami tiger beetle elevates the importance of remnant sites that still retain some pine rockland species. We consider pine rockland habitat to be the primary habitat for the Miami tiger beetle.
We do not have specific information regarding a minimum viable population size for the Miami tiger beetle or the amount of habitat needed to sustain a viable population. Recovery plans for Cicindela puritana Puritan tiger beetle and C. dorsalis dorsalis Northeastern beach tiger beetle consider a minimum viable population size to be at least 500
1,000 adults Hill and Knisley 1993, p.
23; Hill and Knisley 1994, p. 31. A
minimum viable population size of 500
adults was estimated for the Salt Creek tiger beetle Cicindela nevadica lincolniana 79 FR 26014, May 6, 2014. The best available data regarding the minimum area and number of individuals necessary for a viable population for the Miami tiger beetle come from information regarding the closely related Highlands tiger beetle Cicindelidia highlandensis; the information describes estimates of a minimum of 100 adult Highlands tiger beetles in an area of at least 2.55.0 ac 1.02.0 ha Knisley and Hill 2013, p.
42. This estimate is based on observations of population stability for the Highlands tiger beetle, as well as survey data and literature from other tiger beetle species Knisley and Hill 2013, p. 42.
The Miami tiger beetle requires open or sparsely vegetated sandy areas within pine rockland habitat to meet their lifehistory requirements, as well as adjacent undeveloped habitat to facilitate dispersal and protect core habitat.
Therefore, based on the information in the previous paragraph, we identify pine rockland habitats of at least 2.55.0
ac 1.02.0 ha in size as a necessary physical feature for this species.
Food, Water, Air, Light, Minerals, or Other Nutritional or Physiological Requirements FoodMiami tiger beetles are active diurnal predators that use their keen vision to detect movement of small
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