Credits

Created by Christine Stephens, Explore Natural Communities Intern Summer 2017, NatureServe. Special thanks to Bryan Gorsira of the Natural Resources Program at Manassas National Battlefield Park, National Park Service.

Sounds: Birds and insects recorded by ENC Interns 2017. Licensed under Creative Commons: Attriution 4.0.

Music: Ladies Take Me With You, by Doctor Turtle (freesoundarchive.org). Licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0. Wind, by David Sestay (freesoundarchive.org). Licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0.

Photos: Eastern Red Cedar forest, by Kerry Skiff, courtesy of NatureServe. Dry-Mesic Acidic Chestnut Oak forest, by Alli Kenlan, courtesy of NatureServe. Licensed under Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0.

References:
Web Soil Survery

Transcript

Podcast Time: 3:22 minutes

[sounds of insects and birds calling fades in] If you stop right here on the Chinn Ridge trail and look around, what do you see? [music starts] Look in front of you, then look behind you. Did you notice? You're standing on the line between two distinct forests! Now, look down the trail. In one direction, you can see a natural community full of many different kinds of deciduous trees. But, the forest in the other direction looks very different. It's made up almost entirely of evergreen trees. Usually community boundaries aren’t so clear, so how did this happen? Well, it has a lot to do with land use and natural processes after a disturbance. But first, let’s talk about these two communities. [first song fades out, new music fades in]

The evergreen trees you see are eastern red-cedars, so naturally, this forest is called the Eastern Red-Cedar Forest [or, Successional Red-Cedar Forest].

The other community is a well-developed, shady deciduous forest with a mix of short and tall, and thin and wide-trunked trees. This is an Oak – Hickory Forest, specifically a Dry-Mesic Acidic Oak – Hickory Forest. I know... it's a really long name, but it's actually pretty informative! The soil here is dry because it’s on a convex slope shaped like a shallow upside-down bowl. As water drains from these soils, it carries away important nutrients, leaving the soil more acidic in the process. This is a great habitat for trees like chestnut oak, white oak, and various hickory species.

So, if these communities are right next to each other, they'll have similar soil, bedrock, and geology, right? In this case, yes! They get rained on by the same clouds, don’t they? Yes! They have the same temperatures summer and winter? Yeah! So what makes them so different? Well, the Eastern Red-Cedar Forest is pretty young; it’s what we call a successional forest. According to historical records, this forest was still a field in the 1970s. When the park acquired the land, the open space was allowed to return to forest. Trees naturally take over open spaces here.

But why eastern red-cedar? Well, birds have a lot to do with that. They love to eat eastern red-cedar seeds. Believe it or not, eastern red-cedar seeds need to be exposed to acid in a bird’s stomach, or they won’t be able to sprout. Birds transport seeds all over the park as they fly around. When the land here was used for agriculture, birds liked to perch on the fences that existed to separate different fields. Cedars that established along these fence lines served as good seed sources for the cedar forest you see now.

Over time, this forest will continue to change. Squirrels and other creatures that live in the Eastern Red-Cedar Forest will carry in seeds, some of which will be buried and forgotten. These will sprout up into new trees that will eventually replace existing eastern red-cedars, and the forest will transition again—maybe even to resemble its mature neighbor, the Dry-Mesic Acidic Oak – Hickory Forest.

When you return in 50 years, these two communities might look much more alike, but for now you're standing in a great spot to see how different natural communities can be. [music fades out] [birds calling]

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