Early Secondary Succession in Bottomland Hardwood Forests of Southeastern Virginia

Addressing the need for reference sites that permit wetland managers to evaluate the relative success of wetland restoration efforts, this project examines the early successional properties of a chronosequence of 17 forested wetlands that have been clear-cut and allowed to naturally revegetate. Ordinations performed on the data using CANOCO software indicated three general types of communities—one dominated by bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) and water tupelo (Nyssa aquatica), one dominated by black willow (Salix nigra), and one with a species composition similar to that of a mature stand of bottomland hardwoods. These divisions were correlated with the percentage of stems originating as coppice on stumps leftover from the clear-cut. In particular, the bottomland hardwood stands were regenerating predominantly as coppice, while the cypress/tupelo and black willow stands were regenerating primarily as seedlings. As indicated by the earlier development of overstory basal area, coppice sites were also regenerating much faster. The hydrology of a site also exhibited a strong impact on the rate of regeneration, with the semipermanently to permanently flooded portions of sites often exhibiting little or no regeneration. The results indicate that, because of the overwhelming reliance on coppice sprouts as the main source of stems and the concomitant enhanced rates of regeneration, certain vegetative parameters of clear-cut bottomland hardwood stands would not be effective benchmarks by which to judge the relative success of creation and restoration efforts.