ORIENTAL BITTERSWEET: MAPPING OCCURRENCES IN A COMBINED REGIONAL EFFORT. Pamela J. Nabors^1,2, Matthew J. Durnin^1,3, Brandon L. League^1,3, Jack W. Ranney³, Scott Kichman⁴, Keith Langdon⁴, Chris Ulrey⁵, Gary Kauffman⁶, Paul Merten⁷, Andy Brown⁸, and regional volunteers⁹, ¹Southern Appalachian Information Node of the National Biological Information Infrastructure, ²Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville, TN ³University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN ⁴Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 5Blue Ridge Parkway, ⁶Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests, ⁷USDA Forest Health Monitoring, Asheville, NC, 8Equinox Environmental, Inc., Asheville, NC, and ⁹Southern Appalachian Man And the Biosphere, regional program. (pjnabors@utk.edu)

ABSTRACT

Field survey data from multiple regional organizations were combined to provide a rapid assessment of Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculata) in the western counties of North Carolina. This poster displays a map created by the Southern Appalachian Information Node (SAIN) of the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) using Oriental bittersweet occurrence data from the SAMAB Southern Appalachian Volunteer Environmental Monitoring program, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Pisgah National Forest, the Nantahala National Forest, and regional ecologists. Visit http://sain.nbii.org for more information about NBII-SAIN and to view this map on-line.