Successional Relationships of Five Florida Plant Communities
1976
Veno, Patricia Ann
Permanent 20—yr—old quadrats located in five plant communities in the University of Florida's Welaka Conservation Reserve in Putnam County, Florida, USA were inventoried to determine successional changes. The five communities included mesic hammock, xeric hammock, bluejack oak sandhill, turkey oak sandhill, and scrub. The reserve has been protected from fire and no fires had occurred on the study area for at least 40 yr. The quadrats were analyzed in terms of changes in species composition, number of stems, and growth. Increased similarity in species composition to the mesic hammock was found in the xeric hammock, bluejack oak sandhill, and turkey oak sandhill. Tree species composition changed most in the turkey oak sandhill, which gained six tree species and lost none, followed by the xeric hammock, the bluejack oak sandhill, the mesic hammock, and the scrub which exhibited no species change. A successional scheme for the xeric plant communities of north—central Florida was constructed. Rates of succession were also determined. It is proposed that the bluejack oak sandhill, turkey oak sandhill, and xeric hammock communities are changing toward a form of mesic hammock. Although the scrub was not changing in species composition, the individual trees were growing in number and size and the community may possibly become a xeric hammock. The successional scheme was derived for a group of ecosystems under man—induced fire suppression and thus is not necessarily true for undisturbed conditions in which natural fires play an important role. As the amount of land uninfluenced by man's management practices decreases, successional patterns as observed in this study will become the predominant forms.
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