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The Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States is a vast natural area that has gone largely unheralded. Geographically, it fringes the southeastern corner of the continent, stretching 3,200 km from Long Island, New York, to the Mexican border, and including all of Florida. Geologically, it is a region composed entirely of sedimentary deposits of limestone, clay, sand, a small amount of gravel, and peat. Biologically, it is one of the country’s richest centers of biodiversity and endemism, yet basic studies and even surveys of its biota are often wanting (Dodd, 1997; Means, 2000). The Coastal Plain contains the highest species density of amphibians and reptiles in the United States and Canada (Kiester, 1971; Duellman and Sweet, 1999). Among the reptiles, both turtles and snakes reach their highest species densities in the Gulf Coastal Plain (Kiester, 1971; Iverson and Etchberger, 1989; Iverson, 1992). Among amphibians, species richness of frogs peaks in the Coastal Plain (Kiester, 1971) and salamanders are not far behind (Duellman and Sweet, 1999; Means, 2000). Only lizards are depauperate (Kiester, 1971), probably because the climate is not arid. A little over a decade ago, biologists alerted the public to declining amphibian populations around the world (Barinaga, 1990; Blaustein and Wake, 1990; Phillips, 1990; Wyman, 1990), and a great deal of attention has since been focused on amphibians of the American West (Bradford, 1991; Carey, 1993; Fellers and Drost, 1993), Midwest (Lannoo, 1998b), and Canada (Green, 1997b). Much less attention has been given to the status of amphibians in the southeastern United States (Hairston and Wiley, 1993), but a review by Dodd (1997) has shown that many Coastal Plain amphibians are in trouble. Of the 77 species of salamanders and frogs native to the Coastal Plain (42 and 35, respectively), 21 (27%) are dependent upon longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests as habitat in their adult or juvenile stages (Table 21-1). Among the 77 species, 15 (19%) have been ranked by The Nature Conservancy from G-1 (critically imperiled) to G-4 (apparently secure, but not demonstrably widespread, abundant, and secure; Table 21-1). Among the 21 longleaf pine forest-dependent species, however, 7 (33.3%) species are ranked G-1 to G-4. In one study of the amphibians and reptiles of longleaf pine communities, the authors found that over half of the specialist taxa dependent upon longleaf pine savanna were rare enough to be listed by state heritage programs, and they felt that this reflected a severe loss of the ancestral habitat (Guyer and Bailey, 1993). Considering that fully one-third of the amphibians that are dependent upon longleaf pine habitats may be declining, it would seem that preservation and proper management of the native longleaf pine upland habitats of these species should be a high conservation priority throughout the Coastal Plain. The uplands of the largest portion of the Coastal Plain, from the Pine Barrens of New Jersey to Florida and east Texas, were once continuously more or less vegetated by longleaf pine forests (Wahlenberg, 1946; Means, 1996c; Platt, 1999). (Hereafter I follow Platt [1999] in referring to all longleaf pine forests as longleaf pine savanna.) Longleaf pine grows in many different soil types and therefore occurs in several facies, including sandhills , clayhills, and flatwoods. Over the longleaf pine belt, it has been estimated that more than 60% of the landscape, about 82.5 million acres, was in longleaf pine savanna (Wahlenberg, 1946; Ware et al., 1993). This is an exceptionally large percentage of the relatively low-lying Coastal Plain, which was otherwise full of swamps, marshes, lakes, and other types of wetlands. By the end of the twentieth century, longleaf pine savanna had been reduced to less than 2% of its original coverage (Ware et al., 1993; Means, 1996c; Platt, 1999) and old-growth stands with virgin trees amounted to less than 10,000 acres (⬃0.01%; Means, 1996c). In Florida alone, for example, longleaf pine forests declined 88% in the 51-year period from 1936–87 (Kautz, 1993). Kautz predicted that if the same rate of attrition of longleaf pine forests continued in Florida, longleaf pine forests would disappear on all but public lands by 1995. Today, traveling through the South (including the Coastal Plain) can be misleading to the uninformed because pine forests or pine-hardwood mixtures are the dominant vegetation. A large percentage of these are old-field successional forests or mixed pine-hardwood forests that grew up on cutover or abandoned lands (Ware et al., 1993); the rest...

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