Nonalluvial wetlands of the southern Appalachians

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Non-alluvial wetlands of the southern Appalachians

• Brenda Wichmann
• Thomas R. Wentworth
• Robert K. Peet
• Marjorie Boyer

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Montane Non-alluvial Wetlands

• Called bogs by locals
• WV south to GA

• Small (0.5 2.0 ha)
• Geographically Isolated

A.S. Weakley 2007
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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
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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.
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Vegetation
shrub bogs
mosaic bogs
mafic fens
herbaceous bogs
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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)

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Problem
Objective

• Document range of compositional variation
• Determine relationship to physical environment

• Understudied
• Compositional variation relationship to
  environment is largely unknown

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Study Area
Virginia
64 plots from 40 Sites across 11 counties
Tennessee
South Carolina
Georgia
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Methods CVS Protocol

• Permanent plots
• Multiple spatial scales
• Cover of each species
• Physiognomic structure
• Soil sample
• Other abiotic characters

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Results Floristics

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

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Results Sphagnum
Sphagnum diversity is an important component of
these communities 8 RARE Sphagnum spp. (53
rare NC)
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Results Community Analysis

• Cluster Analysis
• Nonmetric Multidimentional Scaling (NMS)

Organize plots according to similarity (or
difference) in species composition
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RESULTS Community Types
Ordination diagram

• Each point plot

• Colored Cluster groups of similar composition

• Arrows direction of max. increase

Expected Environmental gradients are important
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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

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Implications

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

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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