EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021
(Virtually the same conference, without elevators, airplane tickets, or hotel room keys)
5/22/2018 | 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM | CHARACTERIZING VARIABILITY AND DRIVERS OF WETLAND STRUCTURE AT THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP | 430 B
CHARACTERIZING VARIABILITY AND DRIVERS OF WETLAND STRUCTURE AT THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP
The Great Dismal Swamp (GDS) is a forested peatland located in the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Once a mosaic of wetland community types, anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., timber harvesting & ditching) have altered the historical hydrologic regime leading to a homogenization in forest communities and increased peat subsidence. To investigate the drivers of wetland structure, metrics of vegetation species composition and structure, seasonal hydrology, peat depth, and soil properties were collected at 88 monitoring plots across the GDS. These data were augmented with modeled mean growing season water table depth under a variety of hydrologic conditions (e.g., baseline wetness, wet year, & dry year). Community characterization using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) returned four significant groups, where groups with lower red maple IV had higher tree density and richness. Plot-level correlations comported with these results, yielding significant, although moderate, negative correlations between red maple IV and tree richness and density. Interestingly, hydrologic drivers explained only a small, albeit significant, amount of the observed community variation, prompting an investigation of additional drivers (e.g., site history & fire frequency) of wetland structure. These findings will inform ongoing, large-scale hydrologic restoration efforts at the GDS.
- Restoration
- Hydrology
- Disturbance
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Presenters/Authors
Raymond Ludwig
(), Virginia Tech, rfludwig@vt.edu;
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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Daniel McLaughlin
(), Virginia Tech, mclaugd@vt.edu;
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