Long Leaf Pine Essay Research Paper Long free essay sample

Long Leaf Pine Essay, Research Paper Long Leaf Pine Happening The long leaf pine community, besides known as a high pine community, occurs on well-drained dirts and are good adapted to fires. They are found on the high land in Florida where the dirt can non incorporate the H2O and the flaxen dirt remains dry in between the rains. This community requires frequent, low-intensity fires, which occur every one to ten old ages, to open seed cones and let the community to renew. Description The long leaf pine community is characterized by the presence of the long leaf pine trees and perennial grasses as land screen. There are a few oaks nowadays but most are burned out by the frequent fires because they can non accommodate to fire as the pines have. The community besides provides nutrient for wildlife such as proverb palmetto and oaks that provide sufficient nutrient when they are fruiting. This community is wholly dependent on fire and the pines have adapted good to lasting fire. Dirts The dirts found in the high pines are really dry coarse sandy spirals. There is besides flaxen clay that is a dry dirt that is rich in foods. The bulk of dirts are classified as entisols, which are overly drained, extremely permeable, and low and foods. The clay dirt is in a dirt group known as paleudults that have birthrate evaluation from chairing to good. Vegetation There are several fluctuations of this ecosystem. Where fire is excluded and/or the pines have been removed, oaks dominate. Land screen under the overstory of pine trees and bush is scattered and sometimes absent. The floor of the system is littered with dry pine acerate leafs that provide fuel for the low strength fires that the system needs to last. There are besides scattered hardwoods that have managed to last in the system. Fig. 1? Long foliage pine Trees Long leaf pine is the premier species of deal, bluejack oak and turkey oak are the premier species of hardwoods. Other species include southern ruddy oak or Spanish oak, sand station oak, unrecorded oak, Arkansas oak, persimmon, black cherry, Sassafras albidums, black hickory hickory and sand hickory Herbaceous Plants Sparkleberry, papaya, myrtle oak, wire grass, blue stems, piney forests dropseed, bracken fern, goffer apple, aureate aster, low-bush blueberry, blackberry, hairawn muhly Fig. 2? Wire grass Animals Long leaf pine community supports many craniates found in a figure of other home grounds. Few of these animate beings nevertheless, depend on this dry highland home ground for endurance. The best adapted to the environment are the burrowers such as the goffer tortoise. There are besides many types of birds in the community, some of which are endangered and rely on the pines extensively. Wildlife that usage this system include: Mammals Sherman # 8217 ; s flim-flam squirrel, Florida mouse, pocket goffer, Florida jaguar Birds Bobwhite quail, land dove, rufous-sided towhee, ruddy cockaded peckerwood, brown headed nutcracker, yellow breasted confabs, Bachman? s sparrow, pine warbler, eastern bluebird, hairy peckerwood, southeasterly sparrow hawk. Reptiles Gopher Tortoise, eastern anil serpent, blue-tailed mole scincid, short-tailed serpent. Fig. 3? Gopher tortoise tunnel Land Use Interpretations The long foliage pine has a great commercial value and has been logged extensively of all time since colonists foremost arrived to this state. Even today the long foliage pine is the pick for many types of timber including its chief function as the perfect tree for telephone poles. This is due to its tallness, lastingness, and the fact that the tree grows about absolutely consecutive. The pine is besides grows really fast which makes it a perfect tree to works and crop for paper production. Fig 4? Long leaf pine community Problems There was a job for sometime of worlds cutting down the pines for commercial usage and non replacing the supply after logging. At one point European colonists logged about all of the old growing forests go forthing nil buttocks. Solutions These concerns have since been addressed and steps have been taken to protect this valuable resource such as replanting seedlings and utilizing fire to keep the natural balance within the systems. Many of these countries are managed as a husbandman would a field of wheat or maize. This insures that there will be ample sums of pine trees for coevalss to come. Fire Fires play a immense function in the long leaf pine community. The fires are required for a figure of grounds. The low strength fires found in this system are used to open up the seed cones and fertilise the land to ease growing of the new seed. The fires besides guarantee that unwanted species of works life is burned out before it has a opportunity to take topographic point within the pine community. The pine trees have a great version to fire where as other species can non manage it and are later burned out. Fig. 5? Cones waiting fire to open them Sand Pine Happening If one travels West on SR 40 from Daytona Beach, finally the mark s for Ocala National Forest will be noticed. Once come ining the forest, the ecosystem of the sand pine community can be observed. Besides called a chaparral community, no other ecosystem quiet compares to this Florida? s mature wood. Description Dirt Practically all chaparral dirts have small or no development and are derived from vitreous silica sand. Regardless of their geological beginning, soils back uping scrub flora are overly well-drained silicious sand practically devoid of silt clay, and organic affair and therefore low foods. Even though they represent some of the droughtiest, least fertile dirts in the province, chaparral dirts are by no agencies uniform. They range from the pure white, overly leached St. Lucia series to reasonably leached dirts that have xanthous sandy undersoil, such as the Paola and Orsino series, to the unleached brownish, grey, or xanthous dirts of the Astatula and Tavarea series. The colour of a peculiar chaparral dirt reflects the length of clip that the dirt has supported scrub flora, as some dirt features are the consequence of biotic actions on the dirt parent stuffs. Although chaparral dirts are overly good drained, drought emphasis may non be a common happening. Even though the bulk of all right roots of chaparral species are shallow, these species besides have deep? doughnut? roots that tap dirt wet at considerable deepnesss. Vegetation Scrub flora varies from topographic point to topographic point, yet it possesses a uniformity of facets that is common to most. This uniformity is due to the fact that the woody flora is about ever composed of the same six species in about the same order of copiousness regardless of the denseness of the sand pines: myrtle oak or chaparral oak, saw palmetto, sand unrecorded oak, Chapman? s oak, rusty Lyonia, and Florida Rosmarinus officinalis. The land screen, though ever sparse, about constantly includes goffer apple, beak haste, milk peas, plus the lichens British soldier moss. Normally the denseness of the land screen is reciprocally relative to the denseness of the sand pines and bushs. Animals A host of carnal species utilize the chaparral. Vertebrates by and large restricted to scour home grounds are the Florida mouse, the Florida chaparral Jay, the Florida chaparral lizard, the sand scincid, and the blue-tailed mole scincid. The chaparral Jay, sand scincid, mole scincid are federally listed as threatened. The goffer tortoise, normally considered a sand hill species, often burrows in chaparral but provenders in nearby herbaceous flora. A figure of big, wide-ranging, or widely distributed mammals utilize chaparrals, including black bear, white-tailed cervid, bay lynxs, grey fox, spotted rotter, and raccoon. Land Use Interpretations The sand pine has environmental value as a Natural System. The one good that this system is used for is during high Waterss ; the animate beings use this country for protection because of its good drainage. Rangeland There is no possible for rangeland usage. Forest Most of the extended sand pine chaparral in the Ocala National wood is managed for mush. The pines are distinct in blocks runing from 50 to 100 hour angle ; the logging equipment automatically reduces the stature of the bush bed ; and so the sites are reseeded utilizing a? topographic point scarifier. ? Urbanland The dirt of the sand pine community is to dry to be used as urbanland Fire The function of fire in the chaparral is far more complicated than normally portrayed, and the forms created are varied. Scrub, like many of Florida? s ecosystems, is pyrogenous? that is, its vegetations and zoologies have developed versions to fire. High-intensity fires that recur infrequently, possibly one time every 10 or even 100 old ages, depending on fuel accretion and opportunity ignitions maintain chaparral. Fire in chaparral does non originate widespread alterations in species composition but instead make little localised micro-disturbances. Following fire, most of the existing species either resprout or last the immediate postburn period as seed. Comparison While long foliage and flaxen pines are both really flaxen and dry countries, there are some differences. For one thing, the dirt in the long foliage community has much more foods so that of the flaxen pine community. The H2O drains off rather easy in both of these systems, go forthing them really dry. The large difference here nevertheless is that the long leaf pine community is much more susceptible to fire than the sand pine due to a important sum of land screen compared to that of the sand pine. Small fires occur often in the long foliage community runing from every 2 to 10 old ages apart. Fires occur much more infrequently in the sand pine community runing from about 10 to 100 old ages. The chief ground for this is because the floor of the long foliage community is much denser than that of the sand pine. The pine trees of both of these communities are really expert to fires and as such have developed an unsusceptibility to fire. They both use fire to open up their pinecones, enabling them to renew themselves. 3da Ecology, Microsoft? Encarta? 97 Encyclopedia. ? 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. Ecosystems of Florida, Myers and Ewel, University of Central Florida Press, 1990