The Effect of Drought on Carolina Bay Plant Communities: Implications
for Bay Vegetation Dynamics
John
Mulhouse, Diane
De Steven, Laura Uhrich, Robert Lide
and Rebecca Sharitz
FUTURE WORK
The vegetative composition of herbaceous Carolina bays at a given time
is chiefly a result of hydrology, both present and past. What has been
shown, albeit at a general level, is that changes in hydrology result
in predictable changes in vegetation. Future work will include more
detailed analyses to determine the compositional similarity/dissimilarity
both within and amongst bays over time. Also, the role of specific species
or groups of species will be further investigated, so that the influence
of hydrologic condition can be more closely tied to the presence or
absence of groups of species. Finally, an extensive seed bank data set
exists for 1998 and this will be used to determine the role of the seed
bank and dispersal in vegetative composition during different hydrologic
regimes. The results of these analyses will be used to refine the model
of herbaceous Carolina bay vegetation dynamics and to better understand
how bay vegetation responds to changing climatic conditions over time.
