Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

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Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

• The Wetlands of Blackwater

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Habitats of Blackwater

• Aquatic, shallow waters
• Brackish Tidal Marsh
• Wet Forests (swamps)
• Agricultural fields
• Impoundments

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Dynamics at Blackwater

• The sinking land
• Salty bay water
• Silt-bearing river waters
• Soil-building plant life

Building an area of water
Building land
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Fresh Water or Salt Water?

• Fresh water Marshes at the head of rivers
• Heavy spring rains

• Salty Marshes
• Exceptionally high tides bring in salt water
• Drought years (little rainfall) evaporate water
  and concentrate salt

These fluctuations bear directly on the plant
life of the marshes
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Three Different Types of Marshes

• Salt marshes Ocean tides dominate (20-30 ppt
  salt)
• Fresh water marshes river input dominates the
  tidal system (0-5 ppt of salt)
• Brackish marshes influenced by both fresh waters
  from rivers and salt water from estuary tides
  (5-20 ppt)

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Brackish Marshes predominate at Blackwater
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Zonation of Plants in a Brackish Marsh

• SAVs
• Emergent Vegetation
• Grasses and other plants (marsh)
• Scrub/shrub community
• Forest

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SAVsSubmerged aquatic vegetation

• Eel grass Zostera maritima
• Widgeon grass Ruppia maritima
• Pond weeds
• Redhead grass Potamogeton perfoliatus
• Sago pondweed Potamogeton pectinatus
• Horned pondweed Zannichellia palustris

salinity
Sago pondweed
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The Low Marsh

• Tall Cord grass
• Spartina alterniflora

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• The high marsh
• Salt meadow cordgrass Spartina patens
• Salt grass Distichlis spicata
• Phragmites

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• The high marsh Woody species
• Groundsel tree Baccharis halimifolia
• Forest edge of Loblolly Pine

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Other plants of aBrackish High marsh

• Marsh mallow
• Marsh hibiscus
• Salt marsh Aster

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Shrub/Scrub Community

• Groundsel tree
• Baccharis hammilifolia
• Marsh Elder
• Iva frutescens
• Bayberry/Wax Myrtle
• Myrica cerifera

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Why are Marshes so important?

• Living filter systems
• Slows the movement of water
• Phosphorous nitrogen cycling
• Attachment surfaces for invertebrates
• Produces detritus
• Plant roots oxygenate soil
• Food and habitat for all kinds of animals

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Marsh Ecology
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Marsh Loss

• 8,000 acres or 12 sq. miles have been lost
• 150-400 acres lost/year

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Slaughter Creek
Little Blackwater River
Blackwater River
Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge LIDAR
NAVD88 _at_ 0.0ft
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Red is NAVD88 -0.3 to 0.0meters
1900 Model
Shorters Wharf Road
Fishing Bay WMA
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Red 0.15 to 0.0 meters
1950
Fishing Bay WMA
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Red 0.09 to 0.0 meters
1970
Fishing Bay WMA
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Red 0.03 to 0.0 meters
1990
Fishing Bay WMA
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2010
Fishing Bay WMA
Blue is 0.03 meters
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2030
Shorters Wharf Road
Fishing Bay WMA
Blue is 0.09 meters
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2050
Wolf Pit
McGraws Island
Harts Ridge
Fishing Bay WMA
Blue is 0.15 meters
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Causes of Marsh Loss

• Sea level rise
• Subsidence (groundwater withdrawal)
• Erosion
• Salt water intrusion
• Invasive species herbivory
• Nutria
• Canada Geese

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MARSH LOSS AT BLACKWATER
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The effect of salt water incursion in a fresh
water marsh
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Refuge harvests 500 resident Canada Geese each
year
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Nutria Extirpated from Blackwater Watershed
By Sept. 2005, over 9,500 nutria
removed Monitoring continues to eliminate new
nutria Trapping efforts expanded to State and
Private Lands
Marsh Areas Recovering
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Efforts to Restore Blackwater Wetlands

• Reduce salt water intrusion
• Extirpate nutria
• Reduce resident Canada geese
• 1980s Wetland Restoration of 12 acres
• 2003 Wetland Restoration of 15 acres

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Future Wetland Restoration
2006 National funding for pilot study to use
dredge material from the Inner Harbor to build
wetlands
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Blackwater

• The Wet Forests

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Forests of the Eastern US
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Forests Before and After the Colonial Encounter
Grace Brush JHU

• The entire drainage area except for tidal
  wetlands, and scattered Native American
  dwellings, was forested prior to European
  settlement
• Precolonial forests were all removed within the
  last 200-300 years for
• lumbering, mining, agriculture, road and railroad
  building
• Chesapeake is presently 40 forested. Most
  forests are grown on abandoned fields or lumbered
  areas. Few are older than 100 years, most are
  30-70 years old.

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• Pollen profiles indicate that the forest types at
  the time of colonization were similar to what
  they would be today if the entire landscape were
  still forested, as it was when the colonists
  arrived.
• Todays forests are secondary forests in
  different stages of succession.
• Vast reduction in forest habitat for wildlife

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History of Land-Use and Deforestation

• Early tobacco farming resulted in fragmentation
  into forest patches interspersed with young
  trees, herbs and shrubs.

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• The pattern of farm fields, forests, and marshes
  at Blackwater today
• Wildlife Drive is circled

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Forests of the Eastern Shore
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Logging road and selectively timbered forest
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• Major changes in species distribution
• Loss of American Chestnut and American Elm
• transformation of a highly diverse forested
  landscape to a herbaceous dominated system
• Effect of Agriculture on the Chesapeake Bay
• change from predominantly bottom dwelling
  organisms to floating and swimming organisms
• erosion and run-off from agriculture and
  development
• changes in water clarity, increased nutrients,
  and decreased oxygen.

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Oak-Pine Forest

• Transitional between the central deciduous forest
  and the evergreen forest of the Southeast.
• Topography of the Eastern Shore Frequent, flat
  inter-stream areas form upland swamps.

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Oak-Pine Forest

• Loblolly Pine reaches its northern most limit in
  Kent Co., MD
• Commonly harvested for lumber and pulp/paper.

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Upland Swamp Forest

• Oaks
• Willow
• White
• Water
• Cow
• Sweet Gum
• Red Maple

• Black Gum
• Sweet bay magnolia
• Holly
• Dogwood

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Cypress Swamp

• Bald Cypress
• Black gum
• White cedar
• Oaks
• water
• cow
• white
• willow
• Higher Ground
• Tuliptree
• Beech
• River Birch

Trap Pond, Delaware Pocomoke, MD
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The Forest Community(stratification)

• The canopy
• The shrub layer
• The understory
• The herbaceous layer
• most conspicuous in the spring
• The forest floor

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The Forest Community

• The canopy
• the leafy crowns of the trees
• most of the forests food is made here
  (photosynthesis)
• feeding ground for many animals
• just below the surface of the upper most layer of
  leaves
• leaf eaters beetles, bugs and caterpillars, leaf
  hoppers, aphids etc.
• Song birds and predatory insects (spiders) feed
  on the insects
• Squirrels (gray squirrel and Delmarva fox
  squirrel)
• protection for the forest below

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Canopy Trees at Blackwater

• Loblolly pine
• Sweet Gum
• Red Maple
• Several species of Oak
• Beech

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Kentuck SwampSpecies Abundance
2003
1909
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The Understory Trees

• Smaller trees make up the understory
• Young trees (same species as canopy trees)
• Low-growing trees (dogwoods)
• Many birds and animals spend most of their lives
  in the understory.
• Good for nesting, protection from hawks, owls,
  and stormy weather

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Understory at BW

• American Holly
• Mostly saplings of canopy trees

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Shrub Community

• Shrubs are woody plants with many stems
• A characteristic canopy will harbor a
  characteristic shrub community
• Oak-Pine forest
• High bush blueberry
• Sweet pepper bush
• Swamp azalea
• Huckleberry (Dangle berry)
• Greenbriar!!
• Rarely greater than 7 feet in height
• Effect of a closed forest canopy/ open forest
  canopy on the shrub community

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Shad Bush
Sweet Pepper Bush
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Shrub Community

• Protective cover for small mammals
• shrews
• mice
• chipmunks
• Nesting sites for grosbeaks (in shrubs)
• Nesting site for ovenbirds (below shrubs)
• Berries and seeds for many mammals and birds

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High Bush Blueberry
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Herbaceous Layer

• Emerges during the spring before the canopy is
  fully leafed-out
• Ferns and mosses
• Lichens
• Wild flowers
• spring beauties
• violets
• orchids
• The herbaceous layer dies out by mid-summer,
  existing underground as bulbs rhizomes

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Lichens and Mosses
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Forest Floor

• The wastebasket for all the layers of the forest
  above
• leaves, petals, fruits, seeds, twigs, limbs,
  whole tree trunks, feathers, fur, feces, animal
  carcasses
• estimated 2000-3000 lbs/acre in the fall
• in various stages of decay

Yellow coral mushroom
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• a handful of dirt viewed with a magnifying glass
  reveals
• earthworms, other nematodes
• mites, spiders, black ants, and many other
  insects
• many more organisms are microscopic
• The plants and animals on one acre may out number
  the entire human population by 106 to one!
• Decomposers of the forest ecosystem break down
  the organic matter and release inorganic matter
  (Nitrogen, O2, etc)

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Forest Food Web
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Prescribed Burning of Marsh and Forest at BW NWR
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The Delmarva Fox Squirrel

• Range extended included the entire Delmarva
  peninsula into southeastern PA.
• Remnant populations exist at Blackwater, Eastern
  Neck NWR (Kent Co.)

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Eastern Fox Squirrel Delmarva Subspecies
Brownish in color
gray in color larger in size lighter in color
to the eastern gray squirrel
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• Shy, slow, and deliberate in its movements
• Pine-hardwood forests
• open understory
• forage on the forest floor
• open view of surroundings for quick retreat when
  threatened

• Favorite foods
• pine cones/seeds
• corn, soybeans, red maple seeds

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Kentuck Swamp
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Green Briar