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Stop 20 — Jones Ecological Research Center at Ichuaway, GA

Featured Herp Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus)

Longleaf Pine/Sandhills habitat

Longleaf Pine habitat on the  Ichuaway Reserve

“Longleaf pine is the tree that grows in the upland flatwoods of the coastal plains. Miles and miles of longleaf and wiregrass, the ground cover that coevolved with the pine, once covered the left hip of North America—from Virginia to the Florida peninsula, west past the Mississippi River: longleaf as far in any direction as you could see. In a longleaf forest, miles of trees forever fade into a brilliant salmon sunset and reappear the next dawn as a battalion marching out of fog. The tip of each needle carries a single drop of silver. The trees are so well spaced that their limbs seldom touch and sunlight streams between and within them. Below their flattened branches, grasses arch their tall, richly dun heads of seeds, and orchids and lilies paint the ground orange and scarlet. Purple liatris gestures across the landscape. Our eyes seek the flowers like they seek the flashes of birds and the careful crossings of forest animals.      “You can still see this in places.”    --Janisse Ray, in “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood”   published by Milkweed Editions, 1999

The Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center is located in the heart of longleaf pine habitat in rural Southwest Georgia. Ichauway covers 29,000 acres and basically serves as an outdoor laboratory where researchers study a variety of topics related to the longleaf pine ecosystem.         The longleaf landscape was once abundant, even dominant on the Coastal Plain of the Southeast, but it has become rare due to human land use practices. Scientists at Ichuaway conduct studies on the longleaf pine ecosystem, including plants, animals, nutrients, and conservation.  Their goal is to understand the basic structure and function of longleaf ecosystems, so that the knowledge can be used to guide restoration efforts. Their science is essential if we hope to keep the remaining longleaf ecosystem as part of our southern natural heritage.

Janisse Ray, author of "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood"--published by Milkweed Editions

Ms. Ray and other writers and artists know that their art is also essential for the survival of the longleaf ecosystem. Few scientific journals have passages like the following from Ms. Ray’s book—        “What thrills me most about longleaf forests is how the pine trees sing. The horizontal limbs of flattened crowns hold the wind as if they are vessels, singing bowls, and air stirs in them like a whistling kettle. I lie in thick grasses covered with sun and listen to the music made there. This music cannot be heard anywhere else on the earth.        “Rustle, whisper, shiver, whinny. Aria, chorus, ballad, chant. Lullaby. In the choirs of the original groves, the music must have resounded for hundreds of miles in a single note of rise and fall, lift and wane, and stirred the red-cockaded woodpeckers nesting in the hearts of these pines, where I also nest, child of soft heart. Now we strain to hear the music; anachronous, it has an edge. It falters, a great tongue chopped in pieces.”

Both scientist and artist alike know the longleaf music has faded nearly everywhere. Most longleaf forests had been felled by 1930 or so; current estimates are that about 2 million acres remain, of which only 10,000 acres are “virgin” or old-growth forest. We hear so much about tropical rainforest destruction, but most folks may not even realize that more than 97% of a once vast forest habitat in the Southeast has been eliminated.        Is an old-growth longleaf forest special?        For one answer, turn to the scientists. The loss of longleaf pines has translated to loss of habitat for many reptile and amphibian species. According to Ken Dodd, a biologist with the USGS, “Of the 290 species native to the Southeast, 170 (74 amphibians, 96 reptiles) are found within the range of the remnant longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystem. Many of these species are not found elsewhere, particularly those amphibians that require temporary ponds for reproduction. Many Coastal Plain species are listed federally or by states as endangered or threatened or are candidates for listing.”

Pine Snake Inhabitant of  Sandhills habitats

For another perspective, read Ms. Ray’s “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood”--        “Something happens to you in an old-growth forest. At first you are curious to see the tremendous girth and height of the trees, and you sally forth, eager. You start to saunter, then amble, slower and slower, first like a fox and then an armadillo and then a tortoise, until you are trudging at the pace of an earthworm, and then even slower, the pace of a sassafras leaf's turning. The blood begins to languish in your veins, until you think it has turned to sap. You hanker to touch the trees and embrace them and lean your face against their bark, and you do. You smell them. You look up at leaves so high their shapes are beyond focus, into far branches with circumferences as thick as most trees.        “Every limb of your body becomes weighted, and you have to prop yourself up. There's this strange current of energy running skyward, like a thousand tiny bells tied to your capillaries, ringing with your heartbeat. You sit and lean against one trunk--it's like leaning against a house or a mountain. The trunk is your spine, the nerve centers reaching into other worlds, below ground and above. You stand and press your body into the ancestral and enduring, arms wide, and your fingers do not touch. You wonder how big the unseen gap        “If you stay in one place too long, you know you’ll root.        “I drink old-growth forest in like water. This is the homeland that built us. Here I walk shoulder to shoulder with history—my history. I am in the presence of something ancient and venerable, perhaps of time itself, its unhurried passing marked by immensity and stolidity, each year purged by fire, cinched by a ring. Here mortality's roving hands grapple with air. I can see my place as human in a natural order more grand, whole, and functional than I've ever witnessed, and I am humbled, not frightened, by it. Comforted. It is as if a round table springs up in the cathedral of pines and God graciously pulls out a chair for me, and I no longer have to worry about what happens to souls.”   --from "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood" by Janisse Ray, published by Milkweed Editions, 1999.  Excerpts printed here with author's permission.

Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus)  Gopher tortoises are large land-loving, plant-eating turtles. The range of the gopher tortoise is the Coastal Plain of the southeastern U.S., where they are restricted to a particular habitat type known as the pine-oak sandhills habitat. See the text below and information from the Gopher Tortoise Council to learn more about gopher tortoises.

Tortoise or turtle?          A tortoise is a turtle, but not all turtles are tortoises. No, that's not a riddle. There are many types of turtles: Sea turtles live in the ocean, terrapins dwell in the salt marsh, other turtles make their home in freshwater habitats or on land. Many people think of a tortoise as any turtle that lives on land. In most cases, they'd be right. The box turtle, however, is more closely related to freshwater turtles than to tortoises. Tortoises, therefore, are not simply land-dwelling turtles; they also share a common ancestry. The Gopher Tortoise Council works to protect habitat and tortoises

There are only about 50 species of tortoises worldwide. Four of these dwell in the United States and Mexico, but the gopher tortoise alone has ventured east of the Mississippi River. Gopher tortoises occupy the coastal plain of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, and they barely make it into Louisiana and South Carolina. Both the common name and the scientific name—Gopherus polyphemus—allude to the species' burrowing proclivity. Gopher is the vernacular term for gopher tortoise, as well as for several species of bur-rowing rodents, and polyphemus is undoubtedly a reference to the cave-dwelling mythical character by that name.          By tortoise standards, the gopher tortoise is modest in size: up to 14 inches long. Yet it takes many years for one to reach full stature. It can live for 50 years or more, but it may not reach reproductive maturity until 15-20 years of age. Contrary to common turtle lore, a gopher tortoise (or any other turtle) cannot crawl out of its shell and move into or regrow another, because the shell is fused to the backbone. A juvenile's somewhat flexible shell grows along with the rest of the body, gradually hardening as the tortoise gets older.

The upper shell, or carapace, can have a range of colors: gray, tan, and chocolate. By contrast, the lower shell, or plastron, is usually a lighter brown or pale, golden yellow. Both the plastron and carapace consist of a matrix of bony plates called scutes. It is often possible to estimate the age of a young tortoise by counting the rings (annuli) on a scute, much as you would count rings on the cross-section of a tree. In juveniles and adult females, the plastron is perfectly flat, but in mature males it develops a noticeable concavity toward its posterior. The male also has an elongated scute at the plastrons front end that is used to joust other males when vying for courtship rights with a female.          The gopher tortoise's columnar, elephantlike hind legs are well suited for overland travel, but their slow, almost jerky movements have been likened to the awkward lurches of a child's windup toy. The strong, flattened forelimbs (encrusted with hard epidermal scales in older animals) terminate in stubby, wide claws and are great for digging burrows. Even hatchlings with their spindly legs can dig on their own.

Download Gopher Tortoise  Fact Sheet (pdf file)

Home, sweet sandhill          Many people think a turtle's home is its shell, but that's a misconception because it ignores the need for proper habitat. Tortoises require sandy soils, open-canopy areas that receive plenty of sunlight, and tender, low-growing plants. A good sandhill habitat has a sparse upper canopy, dominated by longleaf or slash pine, and a subcanopy of mixed oaks and evergreen shrubs. Close inspection of the patchy, herbaceous layer reveals an astounding diversity of annuals and perennials— particularly asters, milkweeds, and legumes—on which the tortoise voraciously feeds. In areas where the soil surface has not been severely disturbed, clumps of knee-high wire grass provide the creature with forage material in early spring, before other plants emerge.          What allows so many plant species to survive on sandy soils that are virtually devoid of moisture and nutrients? Most biologists believe the answer is linked to the historical importance of fire, which helps maintain the open canopy crucial for light-thirsty understory vegetation. A low-intensity fire also induces the production, release, or germination of the seeds of "fire-adapted" plants. Some plants, such as wire grass, cannot reproduce without such fires. The fire creates patches of bare soil suitable for germination sites, and nutrients released during the fire can nourish young seedlings.

Hatchling (baby) Gopher Tortoises

The sandhills fauna can be just as diverse as the flora. Many resident animal species—such as the armadillo, pocket gopher, hognose snake, and burrowing owl—circumvent the hot, dry conditions by adopting a fossorial lifestyle. Underground refuges reduce the risk of overheating, dessication, and predation, and may even protect the animals during periodic fires. The gopher tortoise is arguably the most well known fossorial creature of the sandhills. Compared with the other three species of North American tortoises, the gopher tortoise spends proportionally more time in its burrow. The burrow passage, which can be from under three to over seven yards long, is usually just wide enough for the resident tortoise to turn around in, but it often ends in a large chamber several yards below ground surface. The large amount of soil excavated to construct the tunnel is deposited outside the burrow entrance, in a mound called an apron.

Despite occasional territorial disputes with other tortoises, the gopher tortoise is an accommodating host, sharing its home with other species—called commensals. Sixty vertebrate and at least 300 invertebrate species have been found in various tortoise burrows. Some guests use the burrow as a temporary refuge, but others—mostly insects and arthropods—have never been observed outside their benefactor's shelter. Ross Allen, the famous Florida naturalist, once found a diamondback rattlesnake, an opossum, a rabbit, a gopher frog, and a tortoise all living in the same burrow! By creating a home for many types of animals, the gopher tortoise increases the local faunal diversity, earning it the designation of a “keystone” species. Biologists warn that a decline in gopher tortoises could trigger the disappearance of other sandhill species.

Gopher Frogs are sometimes found in Gopher Tortoise burrows

Sandhills habitat

As with many other species in danger of extinction, the gopher tortoise is most threatened by loss or degradation of habitat. Causes of habitat degradation include fire suppression and conversion of structurally complex, mixed-age longleaf pine forests (with a diverse understory) to slash or loblolly pine monocultures. The dry, sandy ridges favored by tortoises are also choice sites for roads, housing, and commercial developments. When several tortoises are likely to be affected, they may be relocated elsewhere. But relocation is a short-sighted, temporary solution, because it ignores the fate of burrow commensals (which are not relocated), increases the risk of spreading diseases, and fails to consider the complex interactions within tortoise populations.

Butterfly Weed often grows  in sandhills habitat

The good news is that certain historical pressures on the animal have subsided. Gopher tortoises—called “Hoover's chickens” during the Depression—are no longer eagerly sought for human consumption. Neither are they being collected from the wild for tortoise races. And most rattlesnake roundups—in which gasoline poured down burrows forced out the rattlesnakes but killed the slow-moving tortoises—have been discontinued. Conservation organizations, biologists, and local citizens are beginning to work together to acquire and protect some of the remaining habitats of the tortoise and to examine the intricate relationship between this creature and its community. Clearly, people are changing their attitudes toward the gopher tortoise and its unique habitat, but its long-term survival will require more than a piecemeal approach.