Maritime Forest Environments

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Maritime Forest Environments

• Develop under the influence of salt aerosols
• Restricted distribution
• Shear edge created by salt aerosols

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Maritime Forests
Maritime forest

• Tidal marsh and creek

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Maritime Forest Environments

• Species adapted to
• Low salt aerosols
• low soil nutrients
• sandy soils

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Maritime Forest Environments

• Salt aerosols control location and structure of
  the maritime forest

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Maritime Forest Characteristics

• Low height growth
• Species selected for tolerance to salts

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Maritime Forest Environments

• Vines and lianas common
• Tree leaves small, thick, evergreen

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Live Oak (Quercus virginiana)
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• Bear oak (Quercus illicifolia) common along New
  England maritime-influence forests

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Southern Red Oak (Quercus falcata)

• Common in Mid-Atlantic maritime forests

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Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana)
ocean
Salt aerosol damage
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American Holly (Ilex opaca)
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Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda)
Loblolly pine is the most common pine in the
maritime forest. It typically is successional
and is replaced by live or laurel oak in the
southeastern US.
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Wax Myrtle (Myrica pennsylvanica)

• Northern Bayberry is common in thickets and
  forests from Cape Hatteras northward into New
  England
• Bayberry candles are made from the waxy coating
  on the berries

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Red Bay (Persea borbonia)
Grapes (Vitis spp.)
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Dogwood (Cornus florida)
Woodbine (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
Poison Ivy (Rhus toxicodendron)
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Partridge Berry (Mitchella repens)
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Resurrection Fern (Polypodium polypoidies)
Fern with adequate moisture

• Fern during drought conditions

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Development of Maritime Forests

• Develop on coastal dune systems
• Sterile sandy soils
• Hummocky topography
• Begin as scattered shrubs

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Natural Impacts on Maritime Forests
Impact of hurricanes on maritime forest
vegetation. Pines are typically snapped off
cabbage palms survive. Live oak and magnolia
have branches and leaves ripped off.
Large migrating dunes are capable of overwhelming
shrub and forest vegetation
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Significant Human Impacts

• Fragmentation occurs when development occurs
  within a continuous forest

Forest opened to salt aerosol impacts when
development occurs
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Freshwater Wetland Environments

• Ponds, swamps, marshes
• Form where water table intersects ground surface

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Freshwater Wetland Environments

• Receive groundwater input from adjacent dunes
• Influenced by groundwater and rainfall

Water flows from adjacent dunes into slough
between dunes
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Freshwater Wetlands

• Cattails (Typha spp.)
• Bulrush (Scirpus spp.)

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Tidal Marsh Environments

• Develop in areas protected from wave attack
• Topographically flat, incised with drainage creeks

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Tidal Marsh Environments

• Alternately exposed and covered by tides daily
• Pulse-stable environments

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Tidal Marsh Environment

• Saltmeadow Cordgrass (Spartina patens)
• Smooth Cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora)

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Zonation

• Cordgrass dominant above and below mean tide
  level
• Many other species dominant above average high
  tides

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Black Needlerush (Juncus roemerianus)
Black Needlerush
Black Needlerush is common at the upper edge of
the tidal marsh where the tide floods only
occasionally
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Sea Ox-eye (Borrichia frutescens)
Sea Lavender
(Limonium carolinianum)
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Glassworts (Salicornia spp.)
These succulent plants grow in the most salinr
environments in the tidal marsh area
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Batis (Batis maritima)
This succulent, similar to glasswort, is common
in the southern United States
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Formation of Tidal Marsh

• Sand and mudflats colonized by smooth cordgrass
• must reach critical elevation
• seed falls on flats
• spread by rhizomes

Typical environments colonized by smooth
cordgrass primarily by seeds
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Formation of Tidal Marsh
Sand flats are colonized by clumps of smooth
cordgrass. Alternatively, the sand flats can be
colonized by germinating seeds of smooth
cordgrass.
Colonization by Spartina alterniflora
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Formation of Tidal Marsh

• Sand flats may become uniformly vegetated in 2-5
  years
• Creeks become incised as community matures

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Human Impacts

• Finger canals (now outlawed in all states)
• Point and non-point source runoff

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Mudflats and Sandflats

• No rooted aquatic vegetation
• Significant infauna (clams, worms, etc.)
• Important habitat for organisms in intertidal
  environments