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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 170 / Tuesday, September 7, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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habitat, and allow for appropriate habitat management;
3 Use of pesticide spray buffers to prevent potential exposure to the species and probable limitation of foraging opportunities; and 4 Establishment of additional populations within the Miami Rock Ridge through captive rearing and translocation of laboratory-reared individuals from wild populations.
Criteria Used To Identify Critical Habitat As required by section 4b2 of the Act, we use the best scientific data available to designate critical habitat. In accordance with the Act and our implementing regulations at 50 CFR
424.12b, we review available information pertaining to the habitat requirements of the species and identify specific areas within the geographical area occupied by the species at the time of listing and any specific areas outside the geographical area occupied by the species to be considered for designation as critical habitat. We are proposing to designate critical habitat in areas within the geographical area occupied by the species at the time of listing in 2016. We also are proposing to designate specific areas outside the geographical area occupied by the species at the time of listing because we have determined that a designation limited to occupied areas would be inadequate to ensure the conservation of the species. Although we do not have definitive information that these areas were historically or are currently occupied by the Miami tiger beetle, they are within the historical range of the species, contain remnant south Florida pine rockland habitat and the essential physical or biological features, and have been determined to be essential for the conservation of the species, as further discussed below. We have determined that it is reasonably certain that the unoccupied areas will contribute to the conservation of the species and contain one or more of the physical or biological features that are essential to the conservation of the species. We have also determined that the unoccupied areas fall within the regulatory definition of habitat at 50
CFR 424.02 since they have the abiotic and biotic features that currently or periodically contain the resources and conditions necessary to support one or more life processes of the Miami tiger beetle.
The historical range of the Miami tiger beetle is limited to Miami-Dade County, Florida, specifically within the Northern Biscayne Pinelands of the Miami Rock Ridge. Over 98 percent of the Miami Rock Ridge pine rocklands outside of
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the Everglades has been lost to development, reducing the current range of the Miami tiger beetle to the southern portion of the Northern Biscayne Pinelands, in the Richmond Pine Rocklands and Nixon Smiley Pineland Preserve.
We anticipate that recovery will require not only continued protection of the remaining extant populations and remnant pine rockland habitat but also establishment of populations in additional areas of Miami-Dade County to ensure there are adequate numbers of beetles and stable populations occurring over the entire geographic range of the Miami tiger beetle. This will help to reduce the chance that catastrophic events, such as storms, will simultaneously affect all known populations.
The two extant Miami tiger beetle populations are small and at risk of adverse effects from reduced genetic variation, an increased risk of inbreeding depression, and reduced reproductive output. In addition, the two populations are isolated from each other, decreasing the likelihood that they could be naturally reestablished if extirpation from one location would occur.
In selecting areas to propose for critical habitat designation, we used the conservation principles of the three Rs: Resiliency, redundancy, and representation Shaffer and Stein 2000, entire for conserving imperiled species.
Resiliency is the ability to sustain populations through the natural range of favorable and unfavorable conditions.
Redundancy ensures an adequate number of sites with resilient populations such that the species has the ability to withstand catastrophic events. Representation ensures adaptive capacity within a species and allows it to respond to environmental changes.
This can be facilitated by conserving not just genetic diversity, but also the species associated habitat type variation. Implementation of this methodology has been widely accepted as a reasonable conservation strategy Tear et al. 2005, p. 841.
In order to ensure sufficient representation for the Miami tiger beetle, we described the physical and biological features as discussed above and identified areas of habitat that contain at least one or more of the features to provide for reintroduction and expansion of the Miami tiger beetle.
Redundancy is currently low as only two populations remain, both on remnant pine rockland sites.
Redundancy can be improved through the introduction of additional populations of the Miami tiger beetle at
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other pine rockland sites. However, throughout the species range, the amount of suitable remaining pine rockland is limited low resiliency, and much of the remaining habitat may be significantly altered due to the effects of climate change over the next century.
Therefore, we reviewed available sites containing pine rockland habitat within the historical range of the species and evaluated each site for its potential conservation contribution based on quality of habitat, spatial arrangement relative to the two extant populations and each other, and existing protections and management of the habitat and sites to determine additional areas that are essential for the Miami tiger beetles conservation.
Sources of Data To Identify Critical Habitat Boundaries We have determined that the areas known to be occupied at the time of listing should be proposed for critical habitat designation. However, recognizing that occupied habitat alone is not adequate for the conservation of the Miami tiger beetle, we also used habitat and historical occurrence data to identify the historical range of the species and necessary habitat features to help us determine which unoccupied habitat areas are essential for the conservation of the species. To determine the general extent, location, and boundaries of critical habitat, the Service used Esri ArcGIS mapping software for mapping and calculating areas Albers Conical Equal Area Florida Geographic Data Library, North American Datum of 1983 NAD 83 High Accuracy Reference Network HARN
along with the following spatial data layers:
1 Historical and current records of Miami tiger beetle occurrences and distributions found in publications, reports, personal communications, and associated voucher specimens housed at museums and private collections Knisley 2015b, entire;
2 Geographic information system GIS data showing the location and extent of documented occurrences of pine rockland habitat Cooperative Land Cover Version 3.3. FWC and FNAI, 2018;
3 Aerial imagery Esri ArcGIS online basemap World Imagery. South Florida Water Management District GIS
Services, Earthstar Geographics, MiamiDade County, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Esri, HERE, Garmin, SafeGraph, Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry of Japan and the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, Environmental Protection
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