ecological information from the Annotated National Wetland Plant Species Data 

 Base, or information from botanical manuals. 



The task of the Regional Interagency Review Panels was to interpret and 

 synthesize reviewers' comments and the range of habitat descriptions given for 

 each species by the various authors of the botanica': manuals into a single 

 wetland Indicator category for their regions. There was an overwhelming 

 similarity of independent Indicator assignments made by both the reviewers, based 

 on their field experience, and the Regional Review Panel members, based on the 

 habitat expressed in the botanical literature. This repeatability of Indicator 

 assignments derived in a variety of ways by ecologists with a wide variety of 

 backgrounds confirmed that the Indicators were both reproducible and defensible. 

 The Regional Review Panels were able to assign, with the highest degree of 

 confidence. Indicators to those species which had been reviewed by a number of 

 regional reviewers and also had a large literature base. The comparability of 

 the Indicator designations is also demonstrated by the large number of species 

 (6,114 species, 91% of the species assigned an Indicator) that were assigned only 

 a single Indicator or a narrow range of Indicators by the independently 

 functioning Regional Review Panels. An analysis of the National Indicator range 

 shows that 483 species (7%) were assigned an NI (no indicator), and 675 species 

 (10%) have a question mark following the Indicator. The question mark signifies 

 a tentative assignment. An analysis of the Regional Indicators for all regions 

 shows that an * was added to 729 Regional Indicators and an NA was assigned to 

 28 species. The National List of Plant Species that Occur in Wetlands represents 

 our progress to date and is provided both for current use and as a base for 

 future revisions. 



V 



