The Schweinitz's sunflower Potential Habitat dataset is a polygon layer depicting high, moderate and low potential habitat locations for Schweinitz's sunflower in NC counties that have a USFWS "current" status listing.

Schweinitz's sunflower (Helianthus schweinitzii), endemic to the Piedmont of North and South Carolina. The few sites where this rhizomatous perennial herb occurs in relatively natural vegetation are found in Xeric Hardpan Forests. The species is also found along roadside rights-of-way, maintained power lines and other utility rights-of-way, edges of thickets and old pastures, clearings and edges of upland oak-pine-hickory woods and Piedmont longleaf pine forests, and other sunny or semi-sunny habitats where disturbances (e.g., mowing, clearing, grazing, blow downs, storms, frequent fire) help create open or partially open areas for sunlight. It is intolerant of full shade and excessive competition from other vegetation. Schweinitz’s sunflower occurs in a variety of soil series, including Badin, Cecil, Cid, Enon, Gaston, Georgeville, Iredell, Mecklenburg, Misenheimer, Secrest, Tatum, Uwharrie, and Zion, among others. It is generally found growing on shallow sandy soils with high gravel content; shallow, poor, clayey hardpans; or shallow rocky soils, especially those derived from mafic rocks.

The three levels are: Low, Moderate, and High Probability of Potential Habitat (based on similarity of environmental conditions to those found at known occurrence locations). These levels represent the fact that given limited knowledge of species biology, continuously changing environments, and potential for gaps and error in both species and environment data, a model prediction dependent on remotely-sensed data can never predict species occurrence or habitat with absolute accuracy and precision. Thus, “Low” probability habitat represents regions and sites where biologists would be very surprised to find this species and its habitat (occurrence here should be extremely rare). In “High” probability habitat, biologists expect to frequently encounter areas that look like potential habitat based on visible environmental and vegetation community characteristics. The thresholds for this species are: Low-Moderate (0.28) and ModerateHigh (0.65).

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Datasets developed under Project ATLAS do not replace any NRTR work for future projects and may not be used as a replacement for site visits / field surveys by qualified professionals and hence should be used only as a supporting platform for decision making. Use of this dataset for project scoping or screening is merely pre-decisional.