Natural Landscapes of Maine A Guide to Natural Communities and Ecosystems by Susan Gawler and Andrew Cutko Natural Landscapes of Maine A Guide to Natural Communities and Ecosystems by Susan Gawler and Andrew Cutko Copyright © 2010 by the Maine Natural Areas Program, Maine Department of Conservation 93 State House Station, Augusta, Maine 04333-0093 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the authors or the Maine Natural Areas Program, except for inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Illustrations and photographs are used with permission and are copyright by the contributors. Images cannot be reproduced without expressed written consent of the contributor. ISBN 0-615-34739-4 To cite this document: Gawler, S. and A. Cutko. 2010. Natural Landscapes of Maine: A Guide to Natural Communities and Ecosystems. Maine Natural Areas Program, Maine Department of Conservation, Augusta, Maine. Cover photo: Circumneutral Riverside Seep on the St. John River, Maine Printed and bound in Maine using recycled, chlorine-free paper Contents Page Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... 3 Foreword ..................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................ 7 Natural Community Concepts ................................................................... 8 Natural Communities and Ecosystems: What are They? ........................... 8 Ecological Variation ....................................................................... 9 Patterns of Formation.................................................................... 10 Rarity ............................................................................................. 11 Natural Communities and Climate Change ................................ 12 About This Classification .......................................................................... 14 How This Classification was Developed ....................................... 14 Relationships to Other Classifications ......................................... 14 Associated Rare and Common Plant and Wildlife Species .......... 17 Limitations .................................................................................... 18 Table of Natural Community Types .......................................................... 20 Ecosystems ................................................................................................. 23 Forested Ecosystems ...................................................................... 24 Open Upland Ecosystems ............................................................. 28 Peatland Ecosystems ...................................................................... 30 Freshwater Shoreline Ecosystems .................................................. 35 Tidal Ecosystems ............................................................................ 39 Keys to Natural Community Types ........................................................... 41 Maine Natural Areas Program Contents (continued) Page Natural Community Profiles .................................................................... 62 Wooded Uplands .......................................................................... 62 Wooded Wetlands ........................................................................ 128 Open Uplands .............................................................................. 162 Open Wetlands ............................................................................. 202 Appendices Appendix A. State and Global Rarity Ranks .......................................... 279 Appendix B. Cross-Reference to Other Classification Types.................. 281 Appendix C. Plant Common Names and Scientific Names ................... 298 Appendix D. Animal Common Names and Scientific Names ............... 321 Appendix E: Quantitative Analysis Methods .......................................... 325 Appendix F: Glossary ............................................................................. 327 References ................................................................................................. 331 Index to Natural Community Profiles ..................................................... 342 Acknowledgements This classification reflects the work of dozens of people over nearly two decades. Numerous field ecologists and naturalists offered data or advice as the classification developed, and several also reviewed draft versions. Contributors and reviewers include Dennis Anderson, Rob Bryan, Charles Cogbill, Ronald Davis, Norm Famous, Linda Gregory, Arthur Haines, Jim and Pat Hinds, Pat Ledlie, Julie Lundgren, Mark McCollough, Janet McMahon, John McPhedran, Don Mansius, Glenn Mittlehauser, Morten Moesswilde, Betsy Newcomer, Sally Rooney, Josh Royte, Nancy Sferra, Eric Sorensen, Marcia Spencer-Famous, Dan Sperduto, Lauren Stockwell, Lillie Vitelli, Jill Weber, Alan White, and Art Wilder. In addition, this work benefitted from natural community classifications at the regional and national level by Mark Anderson, Rick Enser, Jean Fike, Denny Grossman, David Hunt, Julie Lundgren, Ken Metzler, Lesley Sneddon, Eric Sorenson, Daniel Sperduto, and Pat Swain. Linkages of natural communities to animal species were drafted by Mark Ward and reviewed by Mark McCollough, Phillip deMaynadier, and Tom Hodgman. Others providing useful comments on the wildlife information include Mac Hunter, Bob Houston, Peter Vickery, and Andy Whitman. Numerous staff at the Maine Natural Areas Program have been involved with the project. Most notably, Lisa St. Hilaire took what had been a languishing project and kicked it into high gear, providing countless hours of editorial and organizational oversight to bring the project to publication. Don Cameron and Kristen Puryear provided review comments, suggested new types based on field work, and acted as sounding boards throughout the process. Chris Cabot, Brian Carlson, Emily Chase, Dan Coker, Sarah Demers, Janet Gannon, Toni Pied, and Matt Waterhouse helped with various technical and administrative components of the project. Program coordinator Molly Docherty was essential in securing the funding for this project and in overseeing its progress. Most of the photos are from current or former Maine Natural Areas Program staff. Notable exceptions are photos from Ron Butler, Phillip deMaynadier, Keith Kanoti, Ron Logan, Jonathan Mays, Erik Nielsen, Barbara Spencer, and Beth Swartz. Layout and design work were patiently provided by Cory Courtois of Pages Plus. Financial support for this project was provided by the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, Maine Forest Service, Sweet Water Trust, The Nature Conservancy, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. Finally, we are grateful to our teachers, our colleagues, and our families, who have supported our passion for Maine’s natural places. Maine Natural Areas Program Foreword Of fir and fen: exploring ecological patterns You may not want to read this book. Are you a person who sees trees and flowers rather than hemlocks and trilliums? Do you call all the birds you see swimming in a pond “ducks”? Do you think of those slimy plants growing in the intertidal zone as just “seaweed”? If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions you may not be a good candidate to read this book. Perhaps you are one of those people who say things like “I love nature, but I just don’t want my enjoyment of it cluttered up with a lot of names that I can’t bother to remember” or perhaps you picked up this booking thinking that it was a compilation of landscape paintings. On the other hand, if you answered “no” to those questions there is a good chance that you are a naturalist with enough sophistication, depth, and curiosity to appreciate what this book has to offer. You are probably ready to take the next step toward fully savoring the myriad species that share our planet, ready to understand a critical aspect of their ecology, the patterns by which they are organized into natural communities. These patterns are driven by the processes through which organisms interact with their physical environment (for example soil, water, and climate) and one another (for example, as predators or competitors). At a very basic level you already know these patterns--you certainly would be shocked to see a hemlock growing in a stand of cattails because you understand that a forest community is profoundly different from a marsh community. At a much higher level of complexity these patterns and processes are so complex that no one can fully understand them, not even professional ecologists who devote their lives to studying a single ecosystem. As Frank Egler wrote, “Ecosystems are not just more complicated than we think they are; they are more complicated that we can think.” We can get a feel for this complexity with a simple math exercise. Imagine a community with a typical number of species (1000 would be a rough ballpark estimate that will make the math easy). Next multiply that number times all the other species in the community with which each species interacts (999 in our example because indirect interactions count too). You also have to account for a few dozen environmental attributes by