Chapter 4 Habitats
Land Use. The aging of many northern hardwood stands has resulted in closed canopy conditions and decreasing habitat for bird species that rely on diverse understory development such as the Canada Warbler. Lack of disturbance has reduced available habitat for disturbance ‐ dependent species such as the Golden ‐ winged Warbler and Yellow ‐ bellied Sapsucker (Hunter et al. 2001a) . In turn, the impacts to other wildlife from stand level disturbance will need to be examined. For example, small mammals in family Soricidae, such as Masked and Smoky shrews, can respond favorably to forest disturbance in northern hardwoods (Ford et al. 2002) , but this may not be true for other small mammals or salamanders. Pathogens. Beech bark disease is a newly emerged threat to the Beech Gap Subtype and to other Northern Hardwood Forest communities that contain appreciable beech. Many nonnative pathogens are a potential problem for several tree species in this ecosystem, including the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, Balsam Woolly Adelgid, Gypsy Moth, Emerald Ash Borer, and Beech scale. 4.4.4.4 Climate Change Compared to Other Threats Comparing climate change to other ecosystem threats can help define short- and long-term conservation actions and recommendations. The effect of a changed climate is likely to vary widely among examples of these communities, depending on topographic sheltering, configuration of rocks, soil depth, size of groundwater pools, and amount of overland runoff. These systems are tied to specialized, small environments and will be unable to migrate as the climate changes. Many may change very little, while a few will shrink, will be disturbed by wind or flood, or will change substantially because of temperature changes or drought. A small net loss of acreage may occur, but more seeps may be temporarily affected by drought. Table 4.4.4-1 summarizes the comparison of climate change with other existing threats.
Table 4.4.4-1 Climate change compared to other threats to northern hardwood forest.
Rank Order
Threat
Comments
Expected climate changes include warmer average temperatures, longer growing season, probably more hot spells, more drought, and more intense storms. We do not know the effect on rainfall and fog. Much of the climate in this zone is orographically determined and may not follow the same patterns as the general regional climate.
Climate Change
1
2 Fragmentation and increased edge areas can increase predation on forest interior species and increase competition from more common species. Warmer winters and more hot spells may fuel increasing desire for housing development at the higher elevations where these communities occur.
Development
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2025 NC Wildlife Action Plan
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