Southern Research Station

Title: Presettlement Forests of the Black Swamp Area, Cache River,Woodruff County, Arkansas, from Notes of the First Land Survey

Author: Foti, Thomas L.

Date: 2001

Source: Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS 42. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. pp. 7-15

Description: Relationships between forest vegetation and soil were reconstructed from field notes of the 1846 Public Land Survey (PLS) along a portion of the Cache River including Black Swamp. Locations of corners were digitized long with species,diameter,and distance from section or quarter-section corners. Trees were grouped for analysis according to occurrence on groups of ecologically meaningful soil units (similar texture,flood frequency and saturation) using a digitized county soil map. Trees occurring at corners were treated as point-quarter samples to calculate density and dominance; these and relative abundance were used to calculate importance value (IV). Five bottomland and two upland types were defined, based on ecological distinctions in site characteristics. Based on ordination by Detrended Correspondence Analysis, these were shown to occupy a moisture gradient from frequently flooded bottomlands, through less flooded and better-drained bottomlands to well-drained uplands and dry uplands. These types are analyzed to allow restoration biologists maximum flexibility in using them in setting or analyzing restoration goals. One bottomland type occurred on sites where hydrologic regime has been altered by flood control levees to the extent that restoration to the presettlement forest is no longer possible. One of the upland types has not been previously documented and may have been primary habitat for a now-rare plant species, Cyperus grayoides Mohlenbrock.

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Citation

Foti, Thomas L.   2001.  Presettlement Forests of the Black Swamp Area, Cache River,Woodruff County, Arkansas, from Notes of the First Land Survey .   Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS 42. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. pp. 7-15