Wildlife Habitat 101

WILDLIFE

I consider wildlife the terrestrial living things that are neither human nor domesticated. Cows, pigs, goats, dogs and house cats are not wildlife.  The Southern Appalachians are home for high wildlife diversity.  Mammals that still exist here include black bears, white-tailed deer, striped and spotted skunks, cottontail, all the way down to several species of voles and moles.  Various species of reptiles (turtles, snakes, and lizards) and amphibians (frogs and salamanders) as well as birds (songbirds, ducks, wading birds, shorebirds, upland game birds);  invertebrates including bees and butterflies, aquatic insects.

 

SPECIALISTS AND GENERALISTS

Wildlife across the world can generally be separated into two groups, Generalists and Specialists.

Habitat Specialists have a narrow niche requirements for a particular environmental characteristic when compared to more generalist taxa. Specialists are “experts” at utilizing resources within their ecological niches, but often fail to persist outside of these narrow ecological roles. Southern Appalachian examples: red-cockaded woodpecker, golden-winged warbler, northern flying squirrel, Indiana bat, woodland jumping mouse, red squirrel, least weasel, rock shrew, Allegheny woodrat, Southern bog lemming, spotted skunk,

Habitat Generalist Wildlife thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and can make use of a variety of different resources. Southern Appalachian examples: black bear, white-tailed deer, American robin, northern cardinal, American crow, raccoon, opossum, coyote, gray squirrel, striped skunk.

 

HABITAT – THE FOUNDATION

Habitat is the collection of resources (food, cover, and water) required by a particular wildlife species in an area that will support that species.  Wildlife are attracted to areas where habitat is suitable.  Humans can dictate whether certain species are attracted to an area by taking specific actions, by removing the resources they need or by blocking access to those resources.

 

Food

Food attracts wildlife

Cover

If food attracts animals, cover keeps them there.  Sufficient cover is essential for providing protection from the elements (sun, wind, rain and snow) or a place to escape
predators.  Many creatures like dense cover that we might describe as a “thicket.”

 

Water

 

Early Successional Habitat

Early succession plant communities are those dominated by herbaceous species, plants that have no persistent woody stem above ground, which includes both forbs (plants that flower) and grasses.  Prior to European settlement and for a some time following, a significant portion of the south was in early succession.  No one spot stays in early succession as its generally dependent on some type of disturbance.
There are five major types of natural disturbances that have helped shape the southern Appalachians: Fire, Flooding, Wind, Landslides, and Ice.  Many plants and animals depend on these disturbance events to create and maintain their preferred habitat.  In fact, they have evolved adaptations to fill that niche.  Many species that are declining are specialists that specialize on some aspect that that these disturbances create.
Fire suppression began in the early 1900’s and both farm industrialization and abandonment have contributed to to a loss of native early succession plant communities required by many wildlife. Animals dependent on these communities have declined.  If no active management occurs via controlled burning, timber harvest, grazing, mowing-disking, chemical spraying to reset succession, a mid-succession community dominated by woody species develops and winged-seeded woody species, [e.g., sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica), winged elm (Ulmus alata
Michx.), red maple (Acer rubrum) are present.
As succession proceeds, habitat quality declines for some plants and animals. The quality of early succession wildlife habitat is dependent on a structurally and compositionally diverse plant community (Harper et al. 2007; Burger et al. 1990; Millenbah et
al. 1996).
The presence of forbs and scattered brambles and shrubs, along with native grasses, enhances nesting and brooding cover and produces a quality food source for many wildlife species. The importance of these plants cannot be overstated. Forbs, such as common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), beggarslice Hackelia virginiana], partridge pea [Chamaecrista fasciculata(Michx.) Greene], and native lespedezas, such as slender [ Lespedeza virginica(L.) Britt] and hairy lespedeza (Lespedeza hirta(L.) Hornem.], provide forage and seed usedby many wildlife species. These forbs also provide a protective umbrella canopy of cover that is open underneath and used extensively by northern bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus) and wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavos) broods, as well as many ground-feeding songbirds (Burger 2000; Roseberry and Klimstra 1984). Scattered thickets of blackberries (Rubus spp.), wild plum (Prunus spp.), and the occasional sumac (Rhus spp.) offer diverse nesting cover Spizella pusilla and other birds that may nest in shrub cover (Giocomo 2005). These woody shrubs also provide critical winter cover and a quality food source for many wildlife species.
Maintaining early succession and balancing the composition of grass, forbs, and shrubby cover in a field is not necessarily easy. Managing for 30 to 70% native grass cover and 30 to 70% forb cover, with shrub cover no more than 100 yards apart, may be the ideal composition for a diversity of wildlife dependent on early succession plant communities.
However, continued management, knowledge of successional patterns, persistence, and a different perspective by the traditional landowner are required

 

 

Forest

 

 

The Sun