Search Page

Results Page

Reports and Reference Page

SEARCH PAGE

Help and definitions for specific search terms are also available by clicking on the question mark icons on the Search page.

Search Basics

To produce a list of all ecological communities in the B.C. database, simply click the Search Now button, without selecting any of the search criteria.

To narrow down the results of your search:

1. Type in part or all of a scientific or English name, and/or choose from one or more of the following search criteria by checking the desired box or boxes:

• Ecosystem Group (for definitions of the ecosystem groups see the glossary)
• B.C. Conservation Status
• Provincial Identified Wildlife
• Conservation Framework priority type and priority
• Distribution:
  • Biogeoclimatic (BGC) units to zone only, or zone(s) plus subzones, variants and/or phases.
  • Ecoregion classification units to ecoregion only, or ecoregion(s) plus ecosections.
  • Ministry of Environment (MOE) Region
  • Forest District (FD).
  • Regional District

2. Click the Search Now button.

Examples of lists that you can create:

• All ecological communities in the B.C. database.
• All ecological communities in a an Ecosystem Group (e.g., all wetlands, all forests)
• All red-, blue- or yellow-listed ecological communities in B.C., or a combination of any two of these.
• All ecological communities indentified under the Provincial Identified Wildlife Management Strategy.
• All ecological communities in one or more specific FDs, MOE Regions or Regional Districts.
• All ecological communities in one or more specific BGC zones (left-hand box under BGC Units).
• All ecological communities in one or more specific BGC subzones, subzone variants and/or subzone variant phases (right-hand box under BGC Units) within one or more zone.
• All ecological communities in one or more specific ecosections (right-hand box under Ecoregion Classification) within one or more ecoregions (left-hand box under Ecoregion Classification).
• All ecological communities with Conservation Framework priority 1
• Some of the possible combinations of the search criteria, for example:
  • All red-listed ecological communities in a specific ecosystem group.
  • All blue-listed ecological communities in a specific BGC unit and ecosection, FD, MOE Region and/or Regional District.
  • All ecological communities in a specific ecosystem group and BGC unit, ecosection, FD, MOE Region and/or Regional District.
  • All ecological communities with Conservation Framework priority 1 in a specific BGC unit, ecosection, FD, MOE Region and/or Regional District.

Advanced Tips For Searching By Ecological Community Name and Ecosystem Group

• All ecological communities are listed by their scientific and English names.
• The text you enter is not case sensitive.
• Use the singular of a name, not the plural.
• You do not need to include punctuation.
• If you are unsure of the name of the ecological community you are looking for, use only the parts of the name that you are sure of. The search tool will return all ecological communities that contain the values that you entered, even if the values are in the middle or end of a name (e.g., fir horsetail).
• Use the scientific/English/either radio buttons to refine your search.
• Ecological communities may be in up to three Ecosystem Groups (e.g., Alpine, Herbaceous, Grassland).

Advanced Tips For Searching By Distribution Criteria (FD, MOE Region, Regional District, BGC, Ecoregion/Ecosection)

• You can include within a single search more than one entry at a time from any distribution search criterion (including FD).
• To include more than one entry from a distribution list, select the first entry by clicking on it, then hold down the control key (Ctrl) while clicking on the other desired entries in the list. If the entries of interest are listed contiguously, select the first one by clicking on it, then hold down the Shift key and select the last one in the group.
• If you are unsure where FDs, MOE Regions or Regional Districts are, click on the Map buttons beside the pick lists.
• Select one or more BGC zones from the left-hand (Zone).
• Once one or more BGC zones have been selected from the left-hand box, the list in the right-hand box will display only those subzones, subzone variants and subzone variant phases that occur within the selected zones. One or more of these can be selected (as above) to further refine the search.
• To include all variants and/or variant phases in a specific subzone, simply select the subzone (e.g., selecting BWBSdk will return all ecological communities in the BWBSdk1 and BWBSdk2).
• Select ecoregions and ecosections as for BGC units, i.e., select one or more ecoregions from the left-hand (Ecoregion) box, and further narrow the search by selecting one or more ecosections from the right-hand (Ecosection) box.

Conservation Framework

To execute a search on priorities you must choose both a Priority Type and a Priority.

Priority Type:

HIGHEST: Each ecological community’s highest Conservation Framework priority among all three Goals.
GOAL 1: Contribute to global efforts for species and ecosystem conservation.
GOAL 2: Prevent species and ecosystems from becoming at risk.
GOAL 3: Maintain the diversity of native species and ecosystems.

Priority: The conservation priority of the species or ecological community. Select a value ranging from 1 (highest priority) to 6 (lowest priority). Note that you must select a value in order to search by priority (a blank value results in no search criteria being applied).

Action Group

To search by the Action Group(s) to which the species or ecological communities have been assigned, select one or more values from the list. To select more than one Action Group, hold down the Ctrl key while making selections. Note: if Priority is left blank and one or more Action Groups is selected, the search results will include all species or ecosystems assigned to that group regardless of the assigned Priority.

For a list of action groups and their full descriptions, click here.

For more information about the Conservation Framework, please visit the website at: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/conservationframework/.

Sort Order

There are two drop-down lists that can be used to order the results of a search. Sorting ignores puncuation.

1. Choose to sort by:

• Scientific Name
• English Name
• Global Status
• Provincial Status
• B.C. List

2. Then order the results alphabetically, either ascending or descending.

Click Search

When you are ready to run a query, click one of the Search buttons on the page. This will produce a list of results that meet your specific search criteria (these criteria will be listed on the Results page).

RESULTS PAGE

Definitions for terms used in the column headings on the Results page, are available by clicking on the question mark icon beside the column heading.

Results may be re-ordered using the two drop down windows as described above under Sort Order.

Tip: To find all ecological communities assigned a global rank, sort the results by Global Status, Ascending.

Understanding the Results of a Search

All BGC units in which an ecological community occurs are displayed in the results, regardless of the BGC unit, or other distribution criterion (ecosection, FD, MOE Region, Regional District) specified. This means that a FD (or ecosection, MOE Region, Regional District) search may return ecological communities that also occur in BGC units that don't occur in the specified FD (or ecosection, MOE Region, Regional District). For example, ecological communities in the Haida Gwaii FD include Glyceria borealis Fen, which in addition to occurring in the CWH zone, also occurs in the ESSF, MS and SBPS zones, none of which are found in the Haida Gwaii FD.

The distribution of ecological communities by FD is based on the BGC units that are mapped in each FD. In a very few cases the site unit in which an ecological community occurs, does not occur in a FD even though the BGC unit the site unit belongs to, does. This results in the ecological community being listed in a FD in which it is not known to occur.

Some ecological communities occur entirely or partially in BGC units that are only known to zone (e.g., BAFA, CWH/Em04, SWB/00), so an accurate distribution by FD cannot be generated. These are included under Unknown/Unspecified FD. The results of searches by a known FD should, therefore, always be supplemented by doing a search by Unknown/Unspecified FD, since these ecological communities could also occur in the known FD. Examples include many alpine and wetland ecological communities. Unknown/Unspecified FD is located at the top of the FD pick list.

If a search returns no results, the combination of criteria specified may not be valid (e.g., Haida Gwaii FD and the SBS zone), or there may not be any ecological communities that meet the criteria (e.g., Red-listed ecological communities in the SWBdk).

Reports

Click the 'folder' icon in the Reports column to return a list of Reports and References for that ecological community. See Reports and References Page.

Change Criteria Button

Returns you to the Search page with the last search criteria you selected, allowing you to modify your search.

New Search Button

Returns you to the ecological community search tab with no search criteria selected.

Search Criteria

Provides a summary of the search criteria selected for the results displayed.

Export

Opens up a new browser window that will give you the option of downloading the search results as either a Tab Separated Value file, or as an HTML formatted file that can be opened up in Microsoft Excel®. You may also link to a Metadata document in pdf format (30 KB). Metadata defines and describes each of the columns in the export file.

Printer Friendly

Displays the results in a printer-ready format on your browser.

To print results:

1. Select the Printer Friendly button.
2. Select File>Print on your browser.
3. Select OK on the Print dialog box.

REPORTS AND REFERENCE PAGE

The Reports and Reference page is a list of reports and references for a particular ecological community.

• On the Results page, click the 'Folder' icon in the Reports column to return the Reports and References page for that ecological community.
• Select the View button beside a listed report or reference to access a web page with that document. Only documents with associated web pages will have a View button beside them.
• Selecting an Info button beside a listed report or reference will take you to a web page with information about how to obtain the document.