Recent Trends in Southeastern Ecosystems (2024)

Through SECAS, diverse partners are working together to design and achieve a connected network of lands and waters that supports thriving fish and wildlife populations and improved quality of life for people across the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean. The long-term goal for SECAS is a 10% or greater improvement in the health, function, and connectivity of Southeastern ecosystems by 2060. To stay on track for achieving that goal, a 1% improvement will be needed every 4 years.  

This report is the fifth regular assessment of progress toward the SECAS goal using information from existing monitoring programs. It uses the best available data since SECAS was established in 2011. The report is intended to facilitate discussion around conservation actions needed to meet the goal.  

A majority of indicators improved overall during the period covered in this report. Given the rapid changes happening in the Southeast, this is an encouraging sign for achieving the SECAS goal. Longleaf pine area, prescribed fire in longleaf pine, aquatic connectivity, forested wetland birds, upland forest birds, working lands conservation, coastal condition, and marine fisheries indicators improved fast enough to stay on track to meet the SECAS goal. These have all been major areas of shared conservation focus in the Southeast, and those efforts are clearly having a big impact.   

Only 9 of the 20 indicators had declining trends. Of these, grassland and savanna birds continue to be the most off track for meeting the SECAS goal. Declines in habitat quantity and quality are likely driving this pattern. There is still hope that focused conservation can have an impact, as targeted improvements in habitat quality in the longleaf pine range resulted in increases in grassland and savanna species like Bachman’s sparrow and red-cockaded woodpecker. This further reinforces the importance of accelerating open pine, pine/oak savanna, and other grassland restoration throughout the Southeast for grassland birds, pollinators, and other key species.  

To learn more about the role of SECAS in meeting the goal, see the  SECAS Statement of Purpose . 

For a PDF report version of this story map, see the  2024 Southeastern Trends in Ecosystem report .

The table below is an overview of recent trends in ecosystem indicators. Indicators shown in green are on track to meet the goal (≥1% increase every 4 years); indicators shown in yellow (<1% increase) and red (declines) are not.

To navigate to a specific indicator listed below, use the navigation tabs at the top of the screen.

Through  SECAS , diverse partners are working together to design and achieve a connected network of lands and waters that supports thriving fish and wildlife populations and improved quality of life for people across the Southeastern United States and the Caribbean. SECAS was started in 2011 by the states of the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (SEAFWA) and the federal Southeast Natural Resource Leaders Group. In the fall of 2018, SECAS leadership approved a long-term goal and supporting short-term metrics to evaluate progress toward that connected network.

 The long-term goal is a 10% or greater improvement in the health, function, and connectivity of Southeastern ecosystems by 2060. One of the short-term metrics, selected to stay on track to meet the long-term goal, is a 1% improvement in the health, function, and connectivity of Southeastern ecosystems every 4 years. This report on recent trends seeks to measure progress toward that metric.

This report assesses progress toward the SECAS goal using information from existing monitoring programs. It is intended to facilitate discussion around conservation actions needed to meet the goal.

For 2024, we made four improvements: 1) A new indicator for grassland and savanna area, 2) Updated data and methods for all bird indicators (beach birds, forested wetland birds, grassland and savanna birds, and upland forest birds), 3) Another year of data for prescribed fire in longleaf pine, and 4) Standardized confidence into two categories: lower and higher.

We selected indicators that are monitored by consistent multi-state efforts and are already used by other organizations to evaluate ecosystem conditions.  

For the purposes of this report, we use these definitions for health, function and connectivity:

• Health: The condition of species and the ecosystems they depend on
• Function: The benefits provided to people by species and ecosystems
• Connectivity: The ability of species and ecosystems to move over time

SECAS began in 2011, so we focused on trends between 2011-2022. When data were not available for that entire period, we used as much data from that period as possible.

For indicators where charts only show two points in time (e.g., longleaf pine area), we simply calculated the change between those points. For indicators showing data from more than two years (e.g., prescribed fire in longleaf pine), we estimated the trend based on the slope of a linear regression through all points. For coastal condition, where trends were only available for discrete subregions or states, we averaged trends equally instead of weighting by area. 

We used a combination of quantitative methods and qualitative judgement to estimate confidence in the trend. For indicators where the trend is a regression, we used the p-value to estimate the likelihood that the trend is non-zero. We considered any trend with a p-value > 0.10 as not significant and having low confidence. We used the 0.10 threshold because of smaller sample sizes for some indicators and the use of the p-value in a more general confidence index. For significant trends, we used qualitative judgement based on the design of the monitoring, overall sample size, and major sources of variability in the indicator to determine whether the confidence is medium or high. For indicators where the trend is not based on a regression, we only used the qualitative judgement.

We used 13 different assessments to evaluate indicator trends. Assessments ranged from remotely sensed data like the National Land Cover Database to long-term volunteer-driven monitoring programs like eBird. Additional assessments used included America’s Longleaf Range-wide Accomplishment Reports, Forest Inventory and Analysis, Gopher Tortoise Candidate Conservation Agreement reports, USDA Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act Reports, Southeast Conservation Blueprint, EPA 303(d) state reports, Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership Aquatic Barrier Database, NOAA C-CAP Regional Landcover, National Coastal Condition Assessments, NOAA Reports to Congress on the Status of Fisheries, and Esri global landcover.

There are many subregional assessments of ecosystem conditions (e.g., Chesapeake Bay, Everglades), but their coverage of only part of the Southeast made them difficult to formally integrate into this particular report. One national assessment,  Surfrider Foundation’s State of the Beach , had potential, but was not used because it focused on policies related to beach conditions rather than the actual condition of the beaches.

• Health indicators - The condition of species and the ecosystems they depend on
  •  Areas without invasive plants 
  •  Beach birds 
  •  Caribbean undeveloped land 
  •  Forested wetland area 
  •  Forested wetland birds 
  •  Gopher tortoise (Eastern population) 
  •  Grassland & savanna area 
  •  Grassland & savanna birds 
  •  Longleaf pine area 
  •  Prescribed fire in longleaf pine 
  •  Salt marsh area 
  •  Upland forest birds 
• Function indicators - the benefits provided to people by species and ecosystems
  •  Working lands conservation 
• Connectivity indicators - the ability of species and ecosystems to move over time
  •  Landscape condition 
  •  Undeveloped land in corridors 

• Health indicators - The condition of species and the ecosystems they depend on
  •  Natural landcover in floodplains 
• Function indicators - the benefits provided to people by species and ecosystems
  •  Water quality 
• Connectivity indicators - the ability of species and ecosystems to move over time
  •  Aquatic connectivity 

• Health indicators - The condition of species and the ecosystems they depend on
  •  Coastal condition 
• Function indicators - the benefits provided to people by species and ecosystems
  •  Fisheries 

If you made it this far, good for you! Thanks for your dedication to learning about the trends of Southeastern ecosystems and how they relate to the SECAS goal of improving the health, function, and connectivity of ecosystems.

For supplementary tables and data summaries, check out the appendix of the pdf report, which begins on page 39:  https://secassoutheast.org/pdf/SECAS-goal-report-2024.pdf . For accessibility purposes, it includes the tabular data associated with each graph included in the report.

If you have additional questions or feedback on this report, contact any of the  SECAS staff !