4.4 Terrestrial Communities
T ABLE 4.36 Comparison of climate change with other threats to oak and mixed hardwood pine forest and managed timber
Rank Order Comments
Threat
Development
1 Land use conversions in the Piedmont (primarily to suburban and exurban devel- opment) contribute signifcantly to the reduced condition of some tracts. Te threat includes both direct and secondary impacts of development. 2 Logging and exploitation are of greatest concern when accompanied by conver- sion to pine plantation or severe shifts in composition. Logged forests may be converted to successional pine forests or become dominated by maple or other hardwoods. Demand for biofuels may increase the risk of damage by logging or bio- mass harvest. However, logging remains an important source of income for many landowners and plays a role in helping to keep forested tracts from being sold for development. 3 Nonnative plants such as Japanese Honeysuckle and Autumn Olive have seriously impacted many upland forest stands. Exotic diseases and pests have the potential to induce a large magnitude compositional change, as was seen with American Chestnut in the last century. Increased canopy disturbance by wind, drought mortality, or severe fre will hasten invasion. Gypsy Moths are the most destructive defoliating insect attacking Northern Red Oak, Chestnut Oak, and White Oak. Te Asiatic Oak Weevil attacks Northern Red Oak seedlings and has the potential to seriously afect seedling growth because the larvae feed on the fne roots while the adults feed on the foliage. 4 Tere may be an increase in natural fres (due to increased drought and higher average temperatures), but landscape fragmentation and fre suppression practices likely will continue to prevent most fres from spreading very far in the Piedmont and in the dissected lands where oak forests occur in the Coastal Plain. Most oak forests are expected to beneft from increased fre frequency, as long as the fre intensity is not too high. 5 Piedmont and Coastal Plain oak forests are likely to be relatively resilient to the efects of climate change. Tese communities are tolerant of severe droughts, hot spells, and fres of low intensity. Development, logging, and invasive species are much more of a threat to these communities than climate change.
Logging/ Exploitation
Invasive Species
Fire
Climate Change
to create snags, woody debris, and canopy gaps, and prepares a fertile seed bed, while also improving vegetative structure. Te beneft of fre to understory plant development is highly dependent upon the density of canopy trees, with closed-canopy stands sup- pressing the growth of grasses and forbs following fre. Cavity-nesting birds, arboreal mammals, and some frogs, lizards, and snakes are impacted by the lack of snags, while reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals are impacted by lack of woody debris. Many bird species, such as the Hooded Warbler, Red-headed Woodpecker, Eastern Wood-pewee, Northern Flicker, Nightjars, and many post-fedging juvenile birds utilize canopy gaps for cover, or for foraging habitat, as do some bat species. Lack of fre has also allowed some fre-intolerant mesophytic plant species to become quite common in oak-dominated com- munities, including the American Beech (Franklin and Kupfer 2004) . Te resulting loss of acorn production may be limiting for some wildlife in the future.
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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