Urban and agricultural land uses have interrupted the continuity of southern forests and created forest islands. Wildlife species differ in their response to the resulting fragmentation.
Some wildlife species, particularly habitat specialists, have been harmed by loss and degradation of forest habitat and population isolation caused by urbanization and agriculture.
Other forest wildlife species have benefited from the creation of edge habitat and have adjusted to the new habitats created by people. Habitat generalists tend to adjust more easily to changes brought about by urbanization.
Urbanization excludes some sensitive forest wildlife species but increases the presence of others. Urban habitats vary in their ability to support a diversity of forest wildlife. Advance planning and careful management can enhance the habitat value of urban and suburban conservation areas.
For the most part, wildlife species that are tolerant of urbanization are not the rare or declining species that are of management concern.
For species with area sensitivities, those that require forest interior, those that require specialized habitats, and those intolerant of human disturbance, special management considerations will be needed as urbanization increases in areas of the South.
Prior to European settlement, early successional and disturbance-dependent birds were found in naturally occurring and Native American-maintained forest openings. Many of these disturbance-maintained ecosystems have been lost from the landscape during the last 300 years.
The value of agricultural areas in providing habitat for early successional wildlife species (such as bobwhite) depends largely on how they are managed. “Clean farming,” loss of pastures, creation of fescue-dominated pastures, and the use of heavy, fast-moving machinery have reduced the value of the habitat formerly found in pastures and agricultural fencerows.
Agricultural crops provide foraging habitat for some forest wildlife, such as deer, black bears, raccoons, and many bird species.
Woody fencerows enhance the habitat value of agricultural areas for some wildlife and facilitate the movement of other forest wildlife species. However, woody fencerows in grassland habitats can reduce the habitat value to grassland-dependent birds due to increasing predator presence.
Abandoned agricultural fields in the South have provided important old-field habitat for some early successional and disturbance-dependent wildlife species. This abandonment trend is diminishing in many areas of the Southeast, but forecast abandonment of agricultural lands in the Western portion of the region may provide at least a temporary benefit for early successional species.
Successful conservation of some forest bird species will likely require forest management areas with thousands of acres of contiguous forest habitat. Similarly, many early successional and disturbance-dependent bird species are also area-sensitive, requiring hundreds of acres for successful conservation of some grassland bird species and dozens of acres for some scrub-shrub birds.
The area-sensitivities documented for many forest bird species must be considered in a landscape context. Forest patch size is of greater concern in fragmented landscapes, such as the ridge and valley province of the Appalachians and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, than in predominantly forested landscapes, such as heavily forested areas of the southern Blue Ridge and Cumberland Plateau and the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands.
