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Composition, potential old growth, fragmentation, and ownership of Mississippi Alluvial Valley bottomland hardwoods: a regional assessment of historic change

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Abstract-Recent Mississippi River Alluvial Valley (MAV) bottomland hardwood forest surveys revealed a larger proportion of intermittent flood zone (inundated 1 to 2 months), early successional (primarily hackberry-elm-ash), and permanent flood zone (inundated > 6 months annually, primarily baldcypress-water tupelo) community types than in the 1930s. For the same time period, these same surveys showed a smaller proportion of nonpermanent (inundated c 6 months), late-successional community types (overcup oak-water hickory and mixed bottomland hardwood) than in the 1930s. Sporadic flood zone (inundated < 1 month), shade-tolerant community types were less common in the MAV than elsewhere in the South-Central United States (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, east Oklahoma, Tennessee, and east Texas). Most forests with old-growth conditions (site productivity-based minimum basal area, net growth near zero, and no recent commercial harvest activity) were in private ownership and characteristic of select community types. Findings were based on a reexamination of systematic sample-based forest surveys of the region. Annual change in bottomland hardwood area was diminishing (-1 .l percent, 1970s to 1980s; +0.3 percent, 1980s to 1990s) but the frequency of large (> 2,023 ha) forest fragments continued to decline (-2.4 percent, 1970s to 1980s; -4.0 percent, 1980s to 1990s). To reconstruct the historic mix of bottomland hardwood community types, renew forest cover, and retain or enhance associated resource values, this assessment suggests a primary focus on conserving large fragments, shifting nonpermanent flood zone, early successional community types toward late-successional types, and restoring occasional flooding regimes and forest cover adjacent to small remnant bottomland hardwood fragments.

Parent Publication

Citation

Rudis, Victor A. 2001. Composition, potential old growth, fragmentation, and ownership of Mississippi Alluvial Valley bottomland hardwoods: a regional assessment of historic change. In: Hamel, P.B.; Foti, T.L., tech. eds. Bottomland hardwoods of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley: characteristics and management of natural function, structure, and composition: proceedings of a symposium held during the Natural Areas conference; 1995 October 28; Fayetteville, AR. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-42. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station: 28-48.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/2715