Interagency Special Status /
Sensitive Species Program (ISSSSP)
Identification Services
Through the Interagency Special Status/Sensitive Species Inventory Program, the Region 6 Forest Service Regional Office and the Oregon/Washington Bureau of Land Management (BLM) State Office provide identification services to agency personnel for potential special status, sensitive, and Survey & Manage species of bryophytes, lichens, fungi, and terrestrial and aquatic mollusks, which are regarded as “cryptic” species. Voucher specimen collection (when feasible) and expert identification are required for these taxa to provide consistent and defensible verification. A voucher is a “piece of evidence,” validating the presence of a species in a specific locality on a certain date. If a vouchered specimen is verified as a special status, sensitive, or Survey & Manage species, the specimen is then curated and submitted to one of the regional herbaria or museums to allow access to researchers for further work and to provide centralized, permanent, and safe storage.
Specific vouchering instructions with where and how to mail vouchers are provided below in the taxa-specific guidelines. The Regional Office and State Office pay for voucher specimen identification of target special status, sensitive species, and Survey & Manage species. We ask our taxa experts to determine identifications within 30-days.
After receiving species determinations, agency field personnel must enter data regarding voucher collection into the corporate database. Mandatory data entry fields include: the unique species collection number; collection date; name of collector; name of expert who determined the identification; name of the repository where the voucher collection is housed; and any identification notes provided by the expert, such as lichen chemical tests or fungal spore measurements. Forest Service personnel must enter data into the Natural Resource Information System (NRIS) database, specifically, NRIS Fauna for terrestrial mollusks, NRIS Water for aquatic mollusks, and NRIS Threatened, Endangered, Sensitive Plants (TESP) for lichens, bryophytes and fungi. BLM personnel must enter all voucher data, including aquatic mollusks, into the Geographic Biotic Observation database (GeoBOB.)
Send specimen vouchers to the following interagency individual:
Bryophytes, Lichens, Fungi, and Terrestrial and Aquatic Mollusks |
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Darci Rivers-Pankratz |
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Mollusks
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