Date of Award
Summer 2002
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS) in Biology
Department
Biology
Committee Chair
Frank Romano
Abstract
A study of the vascular flora of the wetland species of Choccolocco Creek, its floodplain, and other sensitive areas within the Choccolocco Creek watershed was conducted from March 1994 to May 2002. The creek, which originates in the Talladega National Forest in Cleburne County, is located in northeast Alabama. It flows in a south/southwest direction along the eastern border of Calhoun County and across northern Talladega County to its confluence with Logan Martin Lake near Talladega, Alabama. The floodplain occupies 6,514.67 hectares of the watershed that consists of 97,128 hectares of land in the three county study area.
The bulk of this study was conducted from 1994-1996, during the growing season (about 220 days), and visits to sites continued until the spring of 2002. Nine major collection sites, from headwaters to the mouth, were selected to determine the composition of the flora along the full length of the floodplain. In May of 2002, a forest canopy study was conducted at three of the sites. A modified quadrat method was used to collect data, which was analyzed to assess relative abundance, relative dominance, relative frequency, and importance value. Jaccard's Coefficient and Stander's Community Similarity indices were computed to compare species overlap and relative abundance between the communities.
Changes in the composition of the forested riparian zone along the creek were documented from headwaters to the drowned mouth. Both the Jaccard's (0.64) and Stander's Community Similarity (0.75) indices reflected a greater similarity between the headwaters site in the Talladega National Forest and Jackson Shoals and a decrease in similarity (Jaccard's = 0.18; Stander's = 0.31) between the headwaters and midstream site near the Anniston Municipal Airport. The most diverse site in the study was Jackson Shoals, located near the mouth of Choccolocco Creek ( 19 species), followed by the FSR540 site at the headwaters (14 species), and the NASA EPSCoR site 087 near the Anniston Municipal Airport (10 species).
The mixed deciduous bottomland forest complex within the Choccolocco Creek floodplain canopy study sites is composed of the following ecologically important tree species: Acer negundo, Acer rubrum, Carpinus caroliniana, Liguidambar styraciflua, Liriodendron tulipifera, Morus rubra, Nyssa sylvatica, Ostrya virginiana, Pinus taeda, Platanus occidentalis, Quercus alba, and Ulmus alata.
The completed study yielded 870 specific and infraspecific taxa representing 5 divisions, 142 families, and 464 genera. Approximately 19% (163 species) of the documented flora is non-native. State- and/or globally-listed threatened or endangered species accounted for less than 2% (12 species) of the flora. There were no federally listed species documented in this study.