4.4 Terrestrial Communities
• Basic oak–hickory forests occur on upland fats and slopes in sites similar to dry and dry-mesic oak–hickory forests, but with soils that are not acidic. Most of the soils are apparently near neutral pH rather than truly basic and usually occur over mafc rocks such as gabbro and diabase. Tey are dominated by White Oak in combination with Post Oak or Black Oak, and a number of understory, shrub, and herb species that are scarce or absent on acidic soils are present. • Xeric hardpan forests are the most distinctive of the Piedmont and Coastal Plain oak forests. Tey occur on fat to gently sloping uplands with clay hardpans that restrict water and root penetration. Tis situation is most common on mafc rocks, but it also occurs on acidic shales. Tese sites may have shallow standing water in wet seasons, but are extremely dry in dry seasons. Te canopy is dominated by some of the most drought-tolerant species in the state, Post Oak and Blackjack Oak, and is often some- what open. In addition to these natural communities, there are numerous acres of managed pine plan- tations, primarily of Loblolly and Shortleaf pines, as well as successional stands of these pines scattered across North Carolina (Huang et al. 2015 ). Successional communities, which may have a pine stand component, are addressed in Section 4.4.17 in this chapter. Managed stands may be thinned to reduce overcrowding, subjected to prescribed fre to reduce fuel for wildfres, or herbicide applied to control insect or disease attacks. Scientifc literature provides evidence that intensively managed Loblolly Pine stands can provide a diverse herbaceous plant community throughout a signifcant portion of a plantation’s rotation that benefts conservation of biological diversity (e.g., Wigley et al. 2000; Loehle et al. 2005; Miller et al. 2009; Homyack et al. 2014) , including species of special concern (Miller 2003; Duchamp et al. 2007; Wigley et al. 2007; Morris et al. 2010; O’Bryan 2014; Bender et al. 2015; Johnson 2015) . Intensively managed pine forests may contain a diversity of habitat types and conditions, depending on diferent ages of intensively managed stands, diferent silvicultural treatments, presence of non-intensively managed stands, such as natural stands and riparian bufers, non-forested areas, and the interaction of these habitat conditions across the landscape (Wigley et al. 2000; Jones et al. 2008; Miller et al. 2009; Morris et al. 2010) . Te Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain ecoregion and Piedmont ecoregion oak forest (including mixed hardwoods and pine), another description for this community, is described in the 2005 WAP (see Chapter 5) (NCWRC 2005) . 4.4.11.2 Location of Habitat Mature hardwood and pine forests are found throughout the Piedmont ecoregion, though the total acreage has been declining in recent years. High-quality examples of oak for- ests in the Piedmont can be found on public lands such as Caswell Game Land, Umstead
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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