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Vascular Plant Inventory and Ecological Community Classification for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park

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Vascular Plant Inventory and Ecological Community Classification for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park VASCULAR PLANT INVENTORY AND ECOLOGICAL COMMUNITY CLASSIFICATION FOR CUMBERLAND GAP NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK Report for the Vertebrate and Vascular Plant Inventories: Appalachian Highlands and Cumberland/Piedmont Networks Prepared by NatureServe for the National Park Service Southeast Regional Office March 2006 NatureServe is a non-profit organization providing the scientific knowledge that forms the basis for effective conservation action. Citation: Rickie D. White, Jr. 2006. Vascular Plant Inventory and Ecological Community Classification for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. Durham, North Carolina: NatureServe. © 2006 NatureServe NatureServe 6114 Fayetteville Road, Suite 109 Durham, NC 27713 919-484-7857 International Headquarters 1101 Wilson Boulevard, 15th Floor Arlington, Virginia 22209 www.natureserve.org National Park Service Southeast Regional Office Atlanta Federal Center 1924 Building 100 Alabama Street, S.W. Atlanta, GA 30303 The view and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the U.S. Government. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute their endorsement by the U.S. Government. This report consists of the main report along with a series of appendices with information about the plants and plant (ecological) communities found at the site. Electronic files have been provided to the National Park Service in addition to hard copies. Current information on all communities described here can be found on NatureServe Explorer at www.natureserveexplorer.org. Cover photo: Red cedar snag above White Rocks at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. Photo by Rickie White. ii Acknowledgments I wish to thank all park employees, co-workers, volunteers, and academics who helped with aspects of the preparation, field work, specimen identification, and report writing for this project. I am particularly indebted to the work of Karen Patterson and Gary Fleming of the Virginia Natural Heritage Program for the time they spent to ensure that the final classification of communities was robust and useful. Also, I’d like to recognize the contributions of my co-workers, especially Carl Nordman, Brigitte O’Donoghue, Mark Whited, Kim Feeman, Milo Pyne, and Erin Lunsford. Each of them deserves recognition for their large contribution of time, energy, and patience during the field work at the park and the specimen identification and ecological community work and analysis afterwards. This work would not have been possible without significant support from the staff of the Virginia Natural Heritage Program, Tennessee Division of Natural Heritage, and the Kentucky Natural Heritage Program. In addition to Karen and Gary in Virginia, Allen Belden, Nancy Van Alstine, Philip Coulling, Mike Leahy, and Johnny Townsend of Virginia, Roger McCoy and Claude Bailey of Tennessee, and Heather Housman of Kentucky collected most of the plot data in the field. Julian Campbell of the Kentucky field office of The Nature Conservancy also worked with us in the field. After the field work was completed, ecologists from the Virginia Natural Heritage Program continued to consult on the analysis of community data and worked closely with Brigitte O’Donoghue to clarify distinctions between community types in the cluster analysis. I also thank Cumberland Gap NHP Resource Manager Ries Collier for his assistance in the field. In addition to supplying valuable information about the best access routes, he and his staff delivered our teams to a number of the hardest to reach sites using park vehicles. Our teams could not have reached many of these sites without the direct help of park personnel. Within the NPS Cumberland/Piedmont Network, Teresa Leibfreid provided logistical help throughout the year while supporting the project in an encouraging, thoughtful manner. In addition, Sammi Jo Doyle expertly transferred our data into the correct format for the database NPSpecies and provided assistance as necessary. Staffmembers at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill Herbarium were especially helpful, patient, and considerate. Erin Lunsford (now with NatureServe) and Lisa Geincke proofed our plant specimens for identification mistakes and mounted most of the specimens in the collection. Assistant Curator Carol Ann McCormick supplied all the necessary tools for identification (rulers, magnifying lenses, parking permits, coffee). Curator Alan Weakley contributed time in helping with the most challenging plant identification issues. iii Finally, I thank the NatureServe team for their support throughout the project. Judy Teague used her invaluable ArcView skills to provide us with all plot locations and maps needed to complete the project. Rob Evans (now with the North Carolina Plant Conservation Program) assisted with field work. Mary Russo entered and managed the plot and species data and aided us when we needed to efficiently query datasets. Erin Lunsford and Brigitte O’Donoghue assisted in GIS, Access, and PC-Ord issues as needed. All members of the team contributed a great deal to the final product. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................iii Summary....................................................................................................................1 Introduction...............................................................................................................2 Study Area........................................................................................................................................... 2 Land History....................................................................................................................................... 3 Methods......................................................................................................................4 Permanent plot establishment ........................................................................................................... 4 Vegetation classification..................................................................................................................... 5 Vascular plant inventory ................................................................................................................... 5 Results ........................................................................................................................7 Discussion/Conclusions.............................................................................................9 Species Inventory................................................................................................................................9 Vegetation community analysis....................................................................................................... 11 Ecological Community Summary ................................................................................................... 24 Literature Cited ......................................................................................................26 v FIGURES Figure 1a Overview Map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park............................................30 Figure 1b. Map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Southwest............................................31 Figure 1c. Map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park West. ...................................................32 Figure 1d. Map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park NorthWest...........................................33 Figure 1e. Map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Central West........................................34 Figure 1f. Map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Central East. ........................................35 Figure 1g. Map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park East. ....................................................36 Figure 1h. Map of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Southeast.............................................37 Figure 2. Species area curves for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park......................................38 TABLES Table 1. Plot numbers and locations for all permanent plots established at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park........................................................................................................................................39 Table 2. List of all plants documented for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park ordered alphabetically by scientific name...................................................................................................................................42 Table 3. List of vouchers collected at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. ...............................94 Table 4. Tables of vascular plant diversity measures and species total estimates for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park .......................................................................................................................106 Table 5. Exotic plant species at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. ......................................107 Table 6. Association numbers, plot numbers, and global ranks of all associations identified at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park................................................................................................................115 Table 7. Plot photo names and photo descriptions for Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.....120 APPENDICES
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