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Nonalluvial wetlands of the southern Appalachians

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... Wade Wall, Forbes Boyle, Misty Franklin, Chris Liloia, Kirk Ross, Jerry Reece, Patrick McMillan, Dave Danley, Jeff Ott, Amanda Senft, Sarah Marcinko, and Kevin ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Nonalluvial wetlands of the southern Appalachians


1
Non-alluvial wetlands of the southern Appalachians
  • Brenda Wichmann
  • Thomas R. Wentworth
  • Robert K. Peet
  • Marjorie Boyer

2
Montane Non-alluvial Wetlands
  • Called bogs by locals
  • WV south to GA
  • Small (0.5 2.0 ha)
  • Geographically Isolated

A.S. Weakley 2007
3
Landscape Position
  • Flat valley bottoms
  • Poorly drained stream heads
  • Flooding rare or non-existent
  • Nutrient poor seepage
  • High water table

112,000
112,000
112,000
4
Biodiversity
  • Northern Coastal Plain disjunct taxa
  • Globally rare species (42 G1-G3 2 E 3FSC )
  • Global rare communities
  • Threatened ecosystem

Pogonia ophioglossiodes (L.) Ker-Gawl
Rynchospora alba (L.) Vahl
Menyanthes trifoliata L.
5
Vegetation
shrub bogs
mosaic bogs
mafic fens
herbaceous bogs
6
Current US National Vegetation Classification
types
  • Very broad
  • Based on cursorily inspection
  • Montane Bogs, Fens and Seeps
  • Forested Bogs (4)
  • Mafic Calcareous Fens Seeps (4)
  • Sphagnum Shrub Bogs Seeps (11)

7
Problem
Objective
  • Document range of compositional variation
  • Determine relationship to physical environment
  • Understudied
  • Compositional variation relationship to
    environment is largely unknown

8
Study Area
Virginia
64 plots from 40 Sites across 11 counties
Tennessee
South Carolina
Georgia
9
Methods CVS Protocol
  • Permanent plots
  • Multiple spatial scales
  • Cover of each species
  • Physiognomic structure
  • Soil sample
  • Other abiotic characters

10
Results Floristics
  • 408 taxa in 88 families
  • 13 Globally Rare (G1-G3)
  • 29 NC Imperiled (S1, S2)
  • 5 FSC
  • 1 Endangered
  • 8 County Records

11
Results Sphagnum
Sphagnum diversity is an important component of
these communities 8 RARE Sphagnum spp. (53
rare NC)
12
Results Community Analysis
  • Cluster Analysis
  • Nonmetric Multidimentional Scaling (NMS)

Organize plots according to similarity (or
difference) in species composition
13
RESULTS Community Types
Ordination diagram
  • Each point plot
  • Colored Cluster groups of similar composition
  • Arrows direction of max. increase

Expected Environmental gradients are important
14
Conclusions
  • Vary with elevation, geography, and soil
    chemistry
  • Insular communities with chance differences
    between sites making floristic classification at
    least challenging and imprecise
  • Current NVC needs significant revision with at
    least 3 new types and refinement or elimination
    of 8 types
  • Lots more work needed

15
Implications
  • Quantitative documentation and analysis of
    compositional variation
  • Revision of current NVC types
  • Guide conservation decisions
  • Baseline data
  • Restoration
  • Management

16
Acknowledgements
  • Carolina Vegetation Survey
  • NC Department of Environment and Natural
    Resources (DENR)
  • Caitlin Elam, Wade Wall, Forbes Boyle, Misty
    Franklin, Chris Liloia, Kirk Ross, Jerry Reece,
    Patrick McMillan, Dave Danley, Jeff Ott, Amanda
    Senft, Sarah Marcinko, and Kevin Dixon
  • UNC Department of Biology
  • NCSU Department of Botany
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