Legacy FAR1 strategy/approaches.
Open woodlands have 30-50% canopy cover, excessively well-drained soils, and are typically found on flat ridgetops. They experience very frequent, low-intensity fires. Dominant species include blackjack, white, chinquapin, and post oak;black hickory; eastern redcedar and shortleaf pine.
Closed woodlands have 50-90% canopy cover, excessively well-drained soils, and are typically found on steep slopes. They experience frequent, low-intensity fires. Dominant species include black, white, and scarlet oak; mockernut and shagbark hickory; and shortleaf pine.
Flatwoods have a claypan or fragipan layer, leading to a perched water table. Soils are wet in the winter and spring and dry in summer. They experience frequent moderate-low intensity fires. Pin, post, blackjack oak; shagbark, mockernut hickory; shortleaf pine, and blackgum.
Wet bottomland forests experience prolonged, frequent flooding and have wet, poorly-drained soils. Dominant species include pin, willow and overcup oak; green ash, silver and red maple, boxelder, shellbark and water hickory, cottonwood, and black willow.
Mesic bottomland forests are characterized by short, infrequent floods and mesic soil conditions. Dominant species include white and bur oak, sugar maple, American and slippery elm, bitternut hickory, black walnut, pecan, sycamore, hackberry, river birch, sweetgum, and beech.
Mesic upland forests are generally fire-intolerant with mesic, highly fertile soils and tend to occupy north and east facing slopes and ravines. Dominant species include sugar and red maple, northern red and white oak, tuliptree, bitternut hickory, American beech, American basswood, white ash, and black cherry.
Dry mesic upland forests are characterized by low fire frequency and dry-mesic soil conditions. Dominant species include black, white, northern red, and scarlet oak; shagbark, pignut, mockernut, and bitternut hickory; sugar and red maple, tuliptree, and shortleaf pine
In general, fire-adapted systems that have a more open structure and composition are less prone to high-severity wildfire. Frequent low-severity fire has also been shown to promote many species projected to do well under future climate projections, such as shortleaf pine and many oak species. Fire-suppressed systems, on the other hand, tend to have heavy encroachment of woody species in the understory that reduce regeneration potential for these fire-adapted trees. In addition, fire-suppressed systems can be more vulnerable to insect attack.
Habitat fragmentation can hinder the ability of species to migrate to more suitable habitat on the landscape, especially if the surrounding area is nonforested. Modeling results in this assessment and elsewhere indicate that trees would need to migrate at rates of hundreds of feet to several miles per year to keep pace with the changes in climate that are projected to occur over the next century. Species in community types that tend to be more rare and fragmented may be at a particular disadvantage.
Species-rich communities have exhibited greater resilience to extreme environmental conditions and greater potential to recover from disturbance. Conversely, ecosystems that have low species diversity or low functional diversity (where multiple species occupy the same niche) may be less resilient to climate change, its associated stressors, or both. Genetic diversity within species is also critical for the ability of populations to adapt to climate change, because species with high genetic variation tend to have more individuals that can withstand a wide range of environmental stressors
