Transportation-Utility Corridor

Definition

General natural community overview

Transportation and utility corridors are linear tracts of land that extend continuously across all types of terrestrial and aquatic land cover, natural or constructed, rural, suburban, or urban. While transportation and utility corridors are not independently sustainable biological communities, we feel it is necessary to distinguish them because of their ubiquity throughout Wisconsin and the important influence they have on the flora and fauna of our state, their habitats, and the ecological processes they depend upon. Corridors can vary greatly in width, length and depth of disturbance, as well as the portion occupied by structures like transmission poles, the area of impermeable features like road surfaces, and the intensity of vegetation management. Although there is considerable variation in how they are constructed, managed, and maintained, transportation and utility corridors are all subject to practices that control vegetation through mechanical or chemical means, altered soil conditions, altered surface and subsurface hydrology, and controlled and repeated access and disturbance. Depending upon their location and applied management practices, these corridors offer opportunities for dispersal of native or invasive species and for sustaining open habitat types like grasslands and savannahs, but also contriubte to the loss and fragmentation of forested, shrub, and wetland communities. They may create open corridor or edge habitat that improves resource diversity in otherwise continuous habitat no longer subject to natural processes that control succession and gap formation. Or, break up continuous habitat into smaller patches and diminish habitat quality through increased predation and exposure.

Rare animals

Species of Greatest Conservation Need

The following Species of Greatest Conservation Need are listed according to their level of association with the Transportation-Utility Corridor natural community type, based on the findings in Wisconsin's 2015 Wildlife Action Plan.

Scores: 3 = high association, 2 = moderate association, and 1 = low association. See the key to association scores for complete definitions.

Please see Section 2. Approach and Methods of the Wildlife Action Plan to learn how this information was developed.

Rare plants

The Natural Heritage Inventory has developed scores indicating the degree to which each of Wisconsin's rare plant species is associated with a particular natural community or ecological landscape. This information is similar to that found in the Wildlife Action Plan for animals. As this is a work in progress, we welcome your suggestions and feedback.

Threats/Actions

What are conservation actions?

Conservation actions respond to issues or threats, which adversely affect species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) or their habitats. Besides actions such as restoring wetlands or planting resilient tree species in northern communities, research, surveys and monitoring are also among conservation actions described in the WWAP because lack of information can threaten our ability to successfully preserve and care for natural resources.

Threats/issues and conservations actions for natural communities

Photos

Click to view a larger version. Please considering donating your photos to the Natural Heritage Conservation Program for educational uses. Photo use

Transportation-Utility Corridor Photos

Note: photos are provided to illustrate various examples of natural community types. A single photograph cannot represent the range of variability inherent in a given community type. Some of these photos explicitly illustrate unusual and distinctive community variants. The community photo galleries are a work in progress that we will expand and improve in the future.