Indiana Department of Natural Resources

The Indiana Comprehensive Wildlife Strategy is a habitat-based model and was the state’s first effort to acquire statewide habitat data. More than 60 specific habitat types were identified across the state and summarized into eight major habitat types: agriculture, aquatic systems, barrens, developed, forest, grasslands, subterranean systems, and wetlands. Indiana’s habitat is fragmented and dominated by agriculture with less than 6 percent of Indiana’s land in public ownership. Conservation action needs highlighted the importance for habitat protection and restoration on public lands. Land trusts and public funds are the primary mechanisms to prioritize and protect significant habitats. Land use planning, corridor development, succession control, and regulation are all interrelated as tools for larger-scale management of habitats across time and space.

Indiana’s State Wildlife Action Plan is based on a habitat model. A habitat model maximizes limited knowledge about wildlife species by focusing on habitats and species that are better known. All species are linked to habitats on which they depend by using representative species as surrogates. The series of guilds and the species within them are found in Appendix C – Guilds.