Bottomland forest

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Big Oak Tree State Park, Missouri Big Oak Tree State Park Boardwalk.JPG
Big Oak Tree State Park, Missouri

Bottomland forest is woodland on lowland alluvial floodplains or lower terraces of rivers and streams. [1] Bottomland forest is very rare in Europe. [2] The bottomland hardwood forest is a type of deciduous and evergreen hardwood forest found in broad lowland floodplains along large rivers and lakes in the United States [3] and elsewhere. [4] They are occasionally flooded, which builds up the alluvial soils required for the gum, oak and bald cypress trees that typically grow in this type of biome. [5] The trees often develop unique characteristics to allow submergence, including cypress knees and fluted trunks, but can not survive continuous flooding. [6]

Typical examples of this forest type are found throughout the Gulf Coast states, and along the Mississippi River in the United States. It is estimated there were 24,000,000 acres (97,000 km2) in the region before foresting and farming reduced it to approximately 4,000,000 acres (16,000 km2) today. [7] [8]

On the Black Sea coast of Turkey there is Lake Saka Nature Reserve in İğneada Floodplain Forests National Park, Sarıkum Nature Reserve in Sinop, and Hacıosman Wood Nature reserve  [ tr ] in Samsun. [9]

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The Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge is located about 30 miles (48 km) west of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and one mile (1.6 km) east of Krotz Springs, Louisiana, lies just east of the Atchafalaya River. In 1988 under the administration of Governor Foster the "Atchafalaya Basin Master Plan" was implemented that combined the 11,780-acre (4,770 ha) Sherburne Wildlife Management Area (WMA), the 15,220-acre (6,160 ha) Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge, and the 17,000-acre (6,900 ha) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Bayou Des Ourses into the Sherburne Complex Wildlife Management Area.

D'Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge of the United States located north of West Monroe, Louisiana. It is in Ouachita and Union Parishes on either side of Bayou D'Arbonne near its confluence with the Ouachita River. It lies on the western edge of the Mississippi River alluvial valley. It was established in 1975 to protect bottomland hardwoods and provide wintering habitat for migratory waterfowl. D'Arbonne is one of four refuges managed in the North Louisiana Refuges Complex.

Lake Ophelia National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1988 to protect the Mississippi/Red River floodplain ecosystem. The refuge is located in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, east central Louisiana. The refuge is named for its most prominent water body, the 350-acre (1.4 km2) Lake Ophelia that was at one time a channel of the nearby Red River of the South.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge</span>

Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, located 6 miles south of Macon, Georgia, United States, was established in 1989 to protect, maintain and enhance the forested wetland ecosystem of the Ocmulgee River floodplain. It opened to the public in 2000 and consists of 8,600 acres situated along the fall line separating the Piedmont and Coastal Plains. The acquisition boundary established in 1999 includes around 17,000 acres, though the Fish and Wildlife service has been unable to acquire much private land. The refuge has a diversity of vegetation communities, including mixed hardwood-pine, bottomland hardwoods, tupelo gum swamp forests, creeks, tributaries, beaver swamps and oxbow lakes. The refuge is rich in wildlife diversity including white-tailed deer, wood ducks, black bears, alligators, wild turkey, a nesting pair of bald eagles and excellent wintering habitat for waterfowl. Extensive bottomland hardwoods provide critical habitat for neotropical songbirds of concern, such as Swainson's warbler, wood thrush, prothonotary warbler and yellow-billed cuckoo. The combination of warm weather and wet areas at Bond Swamp provide ideal conditions for a variety of reptile and amphibian species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roanoke River National Wildlife Refuge</span> National Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina, United States

Roanoke River National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1989 to protect and enhance wooded wetlands consisting of bottomland hardwoods and swamps with high waterfowl value along the Roanoke River. The extensive bottomland hardwood habitat of the Roanoke River National Wildlife Refuge is part of what the Nature Conservancy calls "one of the last great places."

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Derman-Ostroh National Nature Park sits in a river valley that separates the southern edge of the Polesian Lowland, and the northern edge of the Podolian Upland in northwestern Ukraine. The terrain is a mixture of pine-oak forest and marshy river lowlands. The park is in the southernmost region of Rivne Raion, Rivne Oblast.

References

  1. "Bottomland Forests". Benton Soil And Water Conservation District. Retrieved 2024-04-14.
  2. Kirwan, Guy; Demirci, Barbaros; Welch, Hilary; Boyla, Kerem; Özen, Metehan; Castell, Peter; Marlow, Tim (2008). The Birds of Turkey. Helm. p. 35. ISBN   9781408104750. Bottomland forest is an extremely rare habitat throughout Europe
  3. "Bottomland Hardwood Forest" (PDF). Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. December 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 6, 2007. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  4. "Human Interventions on Wetlands and their Long Term Impacts on Human Well-being a study of Kizilirmak Delta case, Samsun, Turkey" (PDF).
  5. "Bottomland Hardwoods". School of Forest Resources and Conservation at the University of Florida. Archived from the original on 2009-05-27. Retrieved 2009-04-25.
  6. "Wetlands: Bottomland Hardwoods". Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  7. "The Big Woods of Arkansas: An Imperiled National Treasure". The Nature Conservancy. Archived from the original on 2018-04-27. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  8. Yin, Yao, et al. “Bottomland Hardwood Forests along the Upper Mississippi River.” Natural Areas Journal, vol. 17, no. 2, 1997, pp. 164–73. JSTOR website Retrieved 6 Jan. 2023.
  9. Kirwan, Guy; Demirci, Barbaros; Welch, Hilary; Boyla, Kerem; Özen, Metehan; Castell, Peter; Marlow, Tim (2008). The Birds of Turkey. Helm. p. 35. ISBN   9781408104750.

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