By Samantha Stefanoff (NatureServe Canada)

La traduction en français sera bientôt disponible – French translation coming soon

The NatureServe Canada Ecosystem Based-Automated Range (EBAR) project has just wrapped up another successful (fiscal) year. A few statistics:

• 68 experts generously donated their time to refine automated ranges this past fiscal
• 139 EBAR range maps were published (i.e., expert review completed) for priority species (primarily KBA Canada trigger species, COSEWIC/SARA)
• A total of 850 published EBAR maps are now available on our webpage: https://www.natureserve.org/canada/ebar
• The EBAR-KBA database now manages over 40 million species occurrence records, collected from over 250 data providers/sources 
• The EBAR-KBA database is continuing to grow as we provide data mining and management support to various projects, including the Hudson Bay and James Bay Lowlands project with ECCC and Parks Canada

Additional species of interest, including COSEWIC candidate species, are still in need of expert review. If you or someone you know would like to participate as an expert, please email us at ebar-kba@natureserve.ca

This past fiscal, the NatureServe Canada EBAR team also developed a Hotspot Map that summarizes the number of EBAR species ranges (from a total of 477 published ranges included in the analysis) that intersect each Ecoshape. See image of the Hotspot Map provided and visit: https://www.natureserve.org/canada/ebar to learn more and to access the GIS data and additional documentation.

Hotspot map caption: Hotspot summary map showing the number of EBAR ranges per Ecoshape as of March 31, 2025. A total of 477 published (including high and low star rating) range maps of SARA listed (Endangered, Special Concern, Threatened, or Extirpated) and/or COSEWIC assessed (Endangered, Special Concern, Threatened, Extirpated, Extinct or Data Deficient) species were included in the analysis. Ecoshapes with a darker red coloration indicate areas with a higher count of EBAR ranges that intersect the Ecoshape (i.e., higher count of species known to be present, historically present, or expected to be present within the Ecoshape).

In addition to EBAR work, the NatureServe Canada EBAR-KBA team continued to support the KBA Canada project:

• Technical expertise with data mining and management
• Over 1.5 million duplicate records were flagged in the EBAR-KBA database from iNaturalist, GBIF and BISON based on iNaturalist’s unique ID, keeping records with precise coordinates where available
• Monthly maintenance of the database to ensure that it continues to function smoothly
• Ongoing investigation into server upgrades is currently underway

NatureServe Canada is working to secure funding to be able to continue our work supporting the KBA Canada project in 2026-27 and beyond, including contributing to the growing work effort of the project on ecosystem KBAs.