PARENT SESSION
Wednesday, August 9, 5:00-6:30 pm
Poster Session 19 - Wetland, riparian, and coastal ecology
Exhibit Hall, Ballroom Level, Cook Convention Center
Long term studies of the herb stratum of a Connecticut River oxbow forest.
Holland, Marjorie*,1, Burk, C2, 1 University of Mississippi, Oxford, University, MS2 Smith College, Northampton, MA
ABSTRACT- Vegetation in Ned's Ditch, a regularly flooded segment of a Connecticut River oxbow in Northampton, MA, has been sampled at intervals from 1973 through 2004. Through this period, Acer saccharinum has remained the canopy dominant. Species abundances in the herbaceous stratum have fluctuated yearly as a result of flooding, with hydrophytes, including Lemna minor, Ranunculus flabellaris, and Amblystegium riparium, predominant during wet periods, and more mesophytic taxa predominant in times of drought. Following a series of wet springs from 2000 through 2004, an apparent long term decline of hydrophytes was reversed. Tree seedlings declined sharply in abundance, replaced in part by expansion of the flood-tolerant shrub Cephalanthus occidentalis.
Key words: floodplain forest, herbaceous species, long term study