Southern Ridge and Valley/Cumberland dry calcareous forest

Last updated February 26, 2019

The Southern Ridge and Valley / Cumberland dry calcareous forest is a forest system found in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Alabama is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area and the 24th-most populous of the U.S. states. With a total of 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of inland waterways, Alabama has among the most of any state.

Georgia is a state in the Southeastern United States. It began as a British colony in 1733, the last and southernmost of the original Thirteen Colonies to be established. Named after King George II of Great Britain, the Province of Georgia covered the area from South Carolina south to Spanish Florida and west to French Louisiana at the Mississippi River. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. In 1802–1804, western Georgia was split to the Mississippi Territory, which later split to form Alabama with part of former West Florida in 1819. Georgia declared its secession from the Union on January 19, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15, 1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States. From 2007 to 2008, 14 of Georgia's counties ranked among the nation's 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South. Atlanta, the state's capital and most populous city, has been named a global city. Atlanta's metropolitan area contains about 55% of the population of the entire state.

Tennessee is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th largest and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the west, and Missouri to the northwest. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, with a 2017 population of 667,560. Tennessee's second largest city is Memphis, which had a population of 652,236 in 2017.

These forests occur on dry to dry-mesic calcareous habitats of the southern Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians and on low escarpments of the Cumberland Plateau. They often grow on deep soils and can be found on many landscapes within their range.

In ecology, a mesic habitat is a type of habitat with a moderate or well-balanced supply of moisture, e.g., a mesic forest, a temperate hardwood forest, or dry-mesic prairie. Mesic habitats transition to xeric shrublands in a non-linear fashion, which is evidence of a threshold. Mesic is one of a triad of terms used to describe the amount of water in a habitat. The others are xeric and hydric.

Calcareous is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines.

The Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, also called the Ridge and Valley Province or the Valley and Ridge Appalachians, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian division and are also a belt within the Appalachian Mountains extending from southeastern New York through northwestern New Jersey, westward into Pennsylvania and southward into Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. They form a broad arc between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachian Plateau physiographic province. They are characterized by long, even ridges, with long, continuous valleys in between.

Flora

Trees are mainly oaks and hickories, with other species less abundant. Oaks include white oak ( Quercus alba ), northern red oak ( Quercus rubra ), post oak ( Quercus stellata ), chinkapin oak ( Quercus muehlenbergii ), and Shumard oak ( Quercus shumardii ). Hickories include shagbark hickory ( Carya ovata ). Other trees can be sugar maple ( Acer saccharum ), eastern red-cedar ( Juniperus virginiana ), or pines.^[1]^[2]

Quercus alba, the white oak, is one of the preeminent hardwoods of eastern and central North America. It is a long-lived oak, native to eastern and central North America and found from Minnesota, Ontario, Quebec, and southern Maine south as far as northern Florida and eastern Texas. Specimens have been documented to be over 450 years old.

Quercus rubra, commonly called northern red oak or champion oak, is an oak in the red oak group. It is a native of North America, in the eastern and central United States and southeast and south-central Canada. It grows from the north end of the Great Lakes, east to Nova Scotia, south as far as Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, and west to Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Minnesota. It has been introduced to small areas in Western Europe, where it can frequently be seen cultivated in gardens and parks. It prefers good soil that is slightly acidic. Often simply called red oak, northern red oak is so named to distinguish it from southern red oak, also known as the Spanish oak. It is also the state tree of New Jersey and the provincial tree of Prince Edward Island.

Quercus stellata, the post oak or iron oak, is a North American species of oak in the white oak section. It is a slow-growing oak that lives in dry, poor soils, and is resistant to rot, fire, and drought. Interbreeding occurs among white oaks, thus many hybrid species combinations occur.

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Appalachian Mountains mountain range in the eastern United States and Canada

The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They once reached elevations similar to those of the Alps and the Rocky Mountains before experiencing natural erosion. The Appalachian chain is a barrier to east–west travel, as it forms a series of alternating ridgelines and valleys oriented in opposition to most highways and railroads running east–west.

Quercus muehlenbergii, the chinkapin oak, is an oak in the white oak group. The species was often called Quercus acuminata in older literature. Quercus muehlenbergii, is native to eastern and central North America, ranging from Vermont west to Wisconsin and south to South Carolina, western Florida, New Mexico, and northeastern Mexico from Coahuila south to Hidalgo.

Quercus velutina, the eastern black oak or more commonly known as simply black oak, is a species in the red oak group of oaks. It is widespread in eastern and central North America, found in all the coastal states from Maine to Texas, inland as far as Michigan, Ontario, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Texas.

The Northeastern coastal forests are a temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion of the northeast and middle Atlantic region of the United States. The ecoregion covers an area of 34,630 sq miles (89,691 km²) encompassing the Piedmont and coastal plain of seven states, extending from coastal southwestern Maine, southeastern New Hampshire, eastern Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, southward through Connecticut, New York State, New Jersey, southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.

Hammock (ecology) ecosystem in Southeastern United States consisting of stands of trees, usually hardwood, that form an ecological island within a contrasting ecosystem

Hammock is a term used in the southeastern United States for stands of trees, usually hardwood, that form an ecological island in a contrasting ecosystem. Hammocks grow on elevated areas, often just a few inches high, surrounded by wetlands that are too wet to support them. The term hammock is also applied to stands of hardwood trees growing on slopes between wetlands and drier uplands supporting a mixed or coniferous forest. Types of hammocks found in the United States include tropical hardwood hammocks, temperate hardwood hammocks, and maritime or coastal hammocks. Hammocks are also often classified as hydric, mesic or xeric. The types are not exclusive, but often grade into each other.

The Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests is an ecoregion of the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. It consists of mesophytic plants west of the Appalachian Mountains in the Southeastern United States.

The Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests is an ecoregion in the Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests Biome, in the Eastern United States. The ecoregion is located in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains, including the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians and the Blue Ridge Mountains. It covers an area of about 61,500 square miles (159,000 km²) in: northeast Alabama and Georgia, northwest South Carolina, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and central West Virginia and Pennsylvania; and small extensions into Kentucky, New Jersey, and New York.

An oak forest is a plant community with a tree canopy dominated by oaks. In terms of canopy closure, oak forests contain the most closed canopy, compared to oak savannas and oak woodlands.

The natural environment of Virginia encompasses the physical geography and biology of the U.S. state of Virginia. Virginia has a total area of 42,774.2 square miles (110,784.67 km²), including 3,180.13 square miles (8,236.5 km²) of water, making it the 35th-largest state by area. Forests cover 65% of the state, wetlands and water cover 6% of the land in the state, while 5% of the state is a mixture of commercial, residential, and transitional.

The Southeastern mixed forests are an ecoregion of the temperate broadleaf and mixed forest biome, in the lower portion of the Eastern United States.

The Interior Low Plateaus are a physiographic region in eastern United States. It consists of a diverse landscape that extends from north Alabama across central Tennessee and Kentucky into southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Its natural communities are a matrix of temperate forests, woodlands, and prairies.

The Central and southern Appalachian montane oak forest is a forest system found in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The Southern Appalachian low-elevation pine forest is a forest system that occurs in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It is found in the lower elevations of the southern Appalachian Mountains and adjacent Piedmont and Cumberland Plateau, extending into part of the Interior Low Plateaus.

The Allegheny-Cumberland dry oak forest and woodland is a forest system found in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia.

The Central Appalachian dry oak-pine forest is a forest system found from Maine south through New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, to West Virginia and Virginia. It is abundant in the low- and mid-elevation central Appalachian Mountains and in the central Piedmont.

Central Appalachian pine-oak rocky woodland is a forest system found in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia. It occurs on lower-elevation hilltops, outcrops, and rocky slopes in the central Appalachian Mountains, the Allegheny Plateau, and the northern Piedmont.

The Northeastern interior dry-mesic oak forest is a forest system found in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. These forests cover large areas at low and middle elevations, typically on flat to gently rolling terrain.

The Southeastern conifer forests are a tropical and subtropical coniferous forest ecoregion of the southeastern United States. It is the largest conifer forest ecoregion east of the Mississippi River.

The Southern coastal plain oak dome and hammock is a forest type occurring in small patches in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. These forests consist of thick stands of evergreen oaks on shallow depressions or slight hills. They are distinct from their surrounding habitats, which are often woodlands dominated by longleaf pine.

An oak woodland is a plant community with a tree canopy dominated by oaks. In terms of canopy closure, oak woodlands are intermediate between oak savanna, which is more open, and oak forest, which is more closed. Although the community is named for the dominance of oak trees, the understory vegetation is often diverse and includes many species of grasses, sedges, forbs, ferns, shrubs, and other plants.

References

↑ "Southern Ridge and Valley / Cumberland Dry Calcareous Forest". NatureServe Explorer. Retrieved 2 November 2012.
↑ "Natural Communities of Virginia - Terrestrial System - Low-Elevation Dry and Dry - Mesic Forests and Woodlands: Montane Dry Calcareous Forest and Woodlands". Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. Retrieved 2 November 2012.

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[1] "Southern Ridge and Valley / Cumberland Dry Calcareous Forest". NatureServe Explorer. Retrieved 2 November 2012.

[2] "Natural Communities of Virginia - Terrestrial System - Low-Elevation Dry and Dry - Mesic Forests and Woodlands: Montane Dry Calcareous Forest and Woodlands". Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. Retrieved 2 November 2012.