GA Project Wild Teacher Resource Guide: Introduction to Georgia’s Natural History Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division Second Edition TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Prehistoric Georgia ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Physiographic Regions ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 MOUNTAINS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 CUMBERLAND PLATEAU -------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Caves --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Key Plants and Animals ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 RIDGE AND VALLEY ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 Etowah River ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8 Key Plants and Animals ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 BLUE RIDGE --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 Cove Forests ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 Key Plants and Animals ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 PIEDMONT ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 Flint River --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 Rock Outcrops ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 COASTAL PLAIN --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 Longleaf Pine-Wiregrass Community ------------------------------------------------------- 16 Key Plants and Animals ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 17 Carolina Bays ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18 Key Plants and Animals ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 MARITIME ECOREGIONS -------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Beaches ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 23 Dunes --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23 Maritime Forest --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Salt Marshes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Reefs ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 Key Animals ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 26 REFERENCES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29 WEB RESOURCES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 SPECIES FACT SHEETS WEBLINKS ------------------------------------------------------- 30 APPENDICES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 Exotic Plants ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 31 Georgia State Symbols ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 Citizen Science Activities --------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 Curriculum Aids -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32 Schoolyard Habitats ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32 Special Thanks ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32 Georgia’s Physiographic Regions -------------------------------------------------------------- 33 Colonial Coast Birding Trail ------------------------------------------------------------------- 34 Georgia’s River Basin Map --------------------------------------------------------------------- 35 Georgia’s Protected Animals ------------------------------------------------------------------- 36 Georgia’s Protected Animals-------------------------------------------------------------------- 37 Edited and Updated September 2019 1 INTRODUCTION This guide is a supplement to the Project animals. This guide seeks to introduce some Wild K-12 Activity Guide (PW) and includes of the important plants and animals, not to Georgia’s natural history information. The replace existing guides. PW curriculum primarily deals with environmental issues from across the United CHANGING HABITATS States. Walking through a cove forest in the This guide seeks to provide a basic mountains, floating down the Altamaha introduction to key habitats and wildlife for River by canoe, or wandering the Spanish- each physiographic region within Georgia, moss draped hammock forests on Sapelo provide references for further study, field Island, one may get a sense of permanence trip sites, and PW activities that can be and stability. This sense is largely an adjusted to add local information and flavor. illusion as every habitat experience subtle Hopefully this guide helps to generate a and sometimes more obvious changes greater knowledge and appreciation of through time. These changes result from Georgia’s diverse and increasingly internal and external processes. threatened habitats. It is only a deep Internal processes such as plant growth, concern and commitment to these wild death, and replacement (called natural places that will ensure their existence for succession), are constantly at work, subtly future generations to enjoy. changing every habitat, whether a rock outcrop or a mature forest. Habitats often GEORGIA OVERVIEW progress towards a theoretical “climax” Georgia is the largest state east of the stage, where the species composition Mississippi River, with a land area of 37 remains relatively stable over long periods million acres, and is home to over 10 million of time. If one walks into a forest and the people. This number is expected to increase under-story saplings are the same species as by 37% over the next 25 years. the dominant canopy trees, one is witnessing The state of Georgia is also home to a a forest in its climax stage. remarkably diverse collection of plants and External disturbances such as hurricanes, animals. The term “biodiversity” may droughts, lightning strikes and fires can inspire images of Australian coral reefs and interfere with plant succession, setting back Brazilian rain forests, but for certain taxa, the successional clock. In some habitats, the southeastern United States ranks high in external disturbances occur with enough the world, and certainly within the United frequency that the climax stage is never States for sheer number of species. Georgia reached. For example, the long-leaf pine is home to 975 vertebrates (ranks 2nd in the forests of the coastal plain are fire- nation), of which 63 are found only in maintained ecosystems, which are rapidly Georgia (endemic species). Georgia replaced by hardwoods if fire is suppressed. provides habitats for 62 endangered species. On a much broader time scale, Georgia’s Georgia ranks among the highest of all habitats are also changing due to states for amphibian (80 species), freshwater hemispheric and global climate changes. fishes (265), and crayfish (70) diversity, and The most obvious example is the oscillating is in the top 10 for reptile (84) and vascular climate associated with the Ice Ages over plant diversity (3,600 native plant species). the last 2 million years. Many excellent field guides are available that provide detailed information on the identification and life history of plants and Edited and Updated September 2019 2 PREHISTORIC GEORGIA (Smilodon fatalis) prowled the landscape as Georgia’s landscape at the peak of the well. In a relatively short period of time last major ice age (20,000 years ago) would between 12,000 to 9,000 years ago, 35 to 40 be unrecognizable to a modern observer. Ice species of large mammals went extinct. The ages have occurred about every 100,000 cause of this extinction is still debated today. years for the last 2 million years in the However, the arrival of Paleo-Indian northern hemisphere. A combination of hunters, approximately 12,000 years ago, three distinct cycles in the earth’s rotation probably played a major role in their and orbit seem to cause these predictable extinction. climatic fluctuations. Whatever the cause, Parallel tales can be told of early human ice ages dramatically changed the face of arrival on other continents, such as South North America, beyond the actual extent of America and Australia, where large mammal ice, which reached only as far south as New extinctions followed close on the heels of York State. human hunters. During the ice ages a northern forest of Jack Pine (Pinus sylvestris), Red Pine RECENT HABITAT LOSS (Pinus resinosa) and Spruce (Picea sp.) Recent challenges to wildlife are easier found refuge in the southern Appalachians, to see and understand than prehistoric pushed from its’ northern range by vast climate change and Paleo-Indian hunting. sheets of ice, that in places reached 2 miles Rapidly expanding human populations exert thick. Between 14,000 and 11,000 years ago increasing pressure on wildlife habitat as the