The Journal of the American Bamboo Society Volume 26
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152065 ABS BSCv26 Cover 12/30/13 2:49 PM Page 1 The Journal of the American Bamboo Society Volume 26 152065 ABS BSCv26 Cover 12/30/13 2:49 PM Page 2 BAMBOO SCIENCE & CULTURE The Journal of the American Bamboo Society is published by the American Bamboo Society Copyright 2013 ISSN 0197– 3789 Bamboo Science and Culture: The Journal of the American Bamboo Society is the continuation of The Journal of the American Bamboo Society President of the Society Board of Directors James Clever David Benfield Ariel Dubov Vice President Carole Meckes Tom Harlow Luc Boeraeve Karlyn M. Bradshaw Treasurer Norm Bezona Dawn Weaver Andy Ringle Daniel Fox Secretary Scott Ritchie David King David King Anna Foleen Membership John Tkach Tom Harlow Danielo Ramos Artie Turner Membership Information Membership in the American Bamboo Society and one ABS chapter is for the calendar year and includes a subscription to the bimonthly Newsletter and annual Journal. See http://www.bamboo.org for current rates. Cover photo: Yushania alpina, Rwenzori, Uganda (Photo by Dr. Peter Gill). Bamboo Science and Culture: The Journal of the American Bamboo Society 26(1): 1-12 © Copyright 2013 by the American Bamboo Society Canebrake fauna revisited: additional records of species diversity in a critically endangered ecosystem Steven G. Platt1, Thomas R. Rainwater2*, Ruth M. Elsey3, and Christopher G. Brantley4 1Wildlife Conservation Society, Myanmar Program, Aye Yeik Mon 1st Street, Yadanamon Hosuing Ave., Yangon, Myanmar 2U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ecological Services Field Office, 176 Croghan Road, Suite 200, Charleston, South Carolina 29407, USA 3Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, 5476 Grand Chenier, Louisiana 70643, USA 4United States Army Corps of Engineers Bonnet Carré Spillway, P.O. Box 216, Norco, Louisiana 70079, USA ABSTRACT Monotypic stands of cane (Arundinaria Michx.) known as canebrakes were a dominant landscape feature in the southeastern United States at the time of European settlement. Canebrakes disappeared rapidly as a consequence of altered fire regimes, agricultural clearance, and overgrazing by live- stock, and are now regarded as critically endangered ecosystems. Canebrake fauna remains incompletely known and recent biodiversity studies of this ecosystem are few. In an earlier paper we used historic and contemporary sources to reconstruct the faunal diversity of canebrakes. However, because information is fragmentary and often found in obscure historical sources, inadvertent omissions were unavoidable in our earlier report. We here revisit this topic, provide additional records of canebrake fauna, and discuss the importance of canebrakes to wildlife. We documented the occurrence of an additional 28 species of vertebrates in canebrake habitats, including one reptile, 20 birds, and seven mammals. Canebrake herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles) remains poorly documented. Birds use canebrakes as nesting, foraging, and winter roosting habitat, probably consume cane seeds when available, and incorporate cane foliage in nests. Much of what is known about the mammalian fauna of canebrakes is heavily biased towards megafauna, although a small number of studies suggest rodent and insectivore diversity is comparable to other early and mid-successional habitats in the southeast. Canebrakes provide mammals with escape cover, maternal den sites, foraging habitat, and food in the form of foliage and seeds. We reiterate our earlier recommendation for region-wide faunal inventories of existing canebrakes to address deficiencies in our knowledge as highlighted in this paper. Baseline data generated by these studies, combined with information gleaned from the literature, will provide a means to rigorously eval- uate future conservation and restoration efforts. INTRODUCTION a height of 10 m (McClure 1973; Platt et al. 2006). Cane is the only bamboo native to the Cane (Arundinaria Michx.) is a monopodial United States, occurring throughout the south- bamboo with erect culms bearing evergreen eastern states (except southern Florida), as far foliage, arising from rhizomes and growing to north as southern Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Maryland, and westwards into southern *To whom correspondence should be addressed: Missouri, and eastern Oklahoma and Texas Thomas R. Rainwater (range map in Farrelly 1984; Platt et al. 1997). U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Ecological Services Mature culms form dense (to 160,314 Field Office, 176 Croghan Road, Suite 200, Charleston, South Carolina 29407, USA culms/ha; Marsh 1977), monotypic stands Telephone: 843-727-4707 known as canebrakes (occasionally spelled E-mail: [email protected] “canebreak” in older accounts; also referred to 1 2 Bamboo Science and Culture Vol. 26 as cane “thickets”, “jungles”, or “meadows”; among federal, state, and private land steward- Platt and Brantley 1997; Platt et al. 2002). ship agencies in achieving this objective Some historic accounts describe canebrakes as (Zaczek et al. 2004; Baldwin et al. 2009; treeless areas, whereas others suggest an open Franklin 2009; Zaczek et al. 2009). Because woodland or savanna with cane growing beneath the success or failure of restoration efforts is widely scattered trees (Platt and Brantley 1997). often determined by comparing recent data on Vines were often intertwined among the culms species composition with historical data sets creating a formidable vegetative barrier difficult (Mazzotti et al. 2009; Magurran et al. 2010), a for humans to penetrate (Platt and Brantley 1997). thorough understanding of canebrake fauna is Canebrakes were a dominant landscape necessary before these efforts can be evaluated feature in the southeastern United States at the with scientific rigor. As Aldo Leopold stated, time of European settlement, and period “if we are serious about restoring…ecological accounts indicate that hundreds of thousands of integrity, then we must know what the land was hectares were characterized by this ecosystem like to begin with” (Covington and Moore (Platt and Brantley 1997; Stewart 2007). Cane 1994). Finally, canebrakes were an important was an important understory component of resource for Native Americans (Platt et al. 2009), various evergreen and deciduous forest types and the wildlife found within this ecosystem is (Platt and Brantley 1997), but the largest cane- of interest to anthropologists, historians, and brakes occurred in river bottoms, generally on others attempting to understand indigenous the first ridge or natural levee (Delcourt 1976; folkways (e.g., Hudson 1976; Etheridge 2003). Hudson 1976). Canebrakes disappeared rapidly In an earlier paper we used a variety of historic before the tide of Euro-American settlement and contemporary sources to reconstruct the due to a combination of over-grazing by free- faunal diversity of canebrakes, and documented ranging livestock, altered fire regimes, and the occurrence of 50 species of invertebrates agricultural land-clearing (Marsh 1977; Platt and vertebrates (Platt et al. 2001). Because and Brantley 1997; Stewart 2007). Although information on canebrake fauna is fragmentary, cane persists as an understory plant throughout widely scattered, and often found in obscure most of its historic distribution, large canebrakes historical sources rarely perused by biologists are essentially non-existent today (Meanley (Platt and Brantley 1997; Platt et al. 2001), 1972; Remsen 1986; Pashley and Barrow 1993). inadvertent omissions were unavoidable in our Canebrakes are now regarded as critically earlier report. We here revisit this topic, provide endangered ecosystems, having been reduced additional records of canebrake fauna that have to <2% of their former extent (Noss et al. 1995). come to light in the decade since our original Bamboo communities typically support paper was published, and discuss the importance diverse and often specialized assemblages of of cane and canebrakes to wildlife. invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and For the purposes of the current paper, we mammals (Platt et al. 2001 and references narrowly restrict our definition of “fauna” to therein). However, the fauna of canebrakes vertebrates. Insect diversity in canebrakes is remains incompletely known and recent bio - described in greater detail elsewhere (Platt et diversity studies of this ecosystem are few, al. 2001; Maupin 2009), and we are unaware of presumably owing to the paucity of suitable any studies documenting the diversity of other study sites (Brantley and Platt 2001; Platt et al. invertebrate groups in canebrake ecosystems. 2001). An improved understanding of the Additionally, although Triplett et al. (2006) faunal diversity in canebrakes is therefore accorded specific status to three cane taxa [A. important for several reasons. First, species gigantea (Walt.) Muhl., A. tecta (Walt.) Muhl., inventories of particular habitats are essential and A. appalachiana Triplett, Weakley and L.G. data sets for making informed decisions in Clark], we consider cane only at the generic conservation and resource management level because in most accounts it is impossible (Oliver and Beattie 1993). Second, despite to determine which taxon is being referenced daunting technical challenges, preliminary (Platt et al. 2009). Scientific names (Table 1) efforts suggest landscape-scale restoration of follow Conant and Collins (1991), Sibley canebrakes is ecologically feasible (Brantley (2000), and Kays and Wilson (2009) for and Platt 2001) and considerable interest exists reptiles, birds,