4.4 Terrestrial Communities
• Maritime Shrub Swamps have a canopy of tall shrubs or small trees, usually Red Bay or Swamp Dogwood, which may be tangled together with vines. Tey are apparently wetter than maritime swamp forests but also may be kept in shrub dominance by peri- odic disturbance. • Estuarine Fringe Loblolly Pine Forests occur on wet fats adjacent to salt or brackish marshes along the sounds. Tere is often a fairly dense layer of shrubs and greenbriers. All of the dominant plants are species that occur in disturbed wet sites elsewhere in the Coastal Plain, but these communities appear to be of natural origin. It may be that peri- odic natural disturbances such as saltwater intrusion prevent succession to hardwoods. It has been suggested that fre occurred naturally in these communities and that the natural aspect was open and grassy rather than shrubby. Te 2005 WAP described Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain maritime forest/shrub communities as a priority habitat (see Chapter 5) ( NCWRC 2005 ). Components in this ecosystem include maritime shrub, evergreen forest, deciduous forest, coastal fringe evergreen forest, and Sandhills communities. 4.4.14.2 Location of Habitat Maritime Evergreen Forest is found throughout the barrier islands and good examples can be found at Buxton Woods, Teodore Roosevelt State Natural Area on Bogue Banks, Brown’s Island, and Bald Head Island. Maritime Shrub is found throughout the bar- rier islands, but good examples are rare. Some examples exist at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Shackleford and Core Banks, Brown’s Island, Bear Island in Onslow County, Fort Macon State Park, Bogue Banks, and Fort Fisher. Only one good example of Maritime Deciduous Forest remains at Nags Head Woods in Dare County; an additional example occurs in nearby Kitty Hawk Woods. Maritime Swamp Forest examples can be found in in Buxton Woods and Nags Head Woods. Examples of Estuarine Fringe Loblolly Pine Forests can be found on marsh islands at Swanquarter National Wildlife Refuge and higher uplands at Goose Creek State Park. 4.4.14.3 Problems Affecting Habitats Any loss will be very signifcant for these already rare communities. Te acreage com- pletely lost from this system by community shifts and destruction may be catastrophic. New sites for these communities may be generated as the coastal landscape changes, but only in places not already destroyed by development. Most barrier island examples occur in complexes that are distant from each other, but connections within the complexes can be threatened both naturally by rising sea level and by human actions such as hydrological alteration.
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2015 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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