Upper Mississippi River Restoration Program Long Term Resource Monitoring

Flood regimes alter the role of landform and topographic constraint on functional diversity of floodplain forests

Van Appledorn, M., and M. E. Baker. 2022. Flood regimes alter the role of landform and topographic constraint on functional diversity of floodplain forests. Ecography: e06519. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.06519

The data for this release are here:

Van Appledorn, M., and Baker, M.E., 2022, Functional diversity metrics of floodplain forests from Michigan's Lower Peninsula: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9BSFD8E.

Abstract

Flooding is believed to drive tree species coexistence in floodplain forests. How the positioning of geomorphic landforms interacts with river flood regimes to influence functional diversity is unclear, especially across different physiographic settings. Scientists assessed how functional diversity and ecological strategies of overstory species varied within and among floodplains from the upper Midwest. Interactions of flood regime and landform positioning produced different patterns of functional diversity and ecological strategies. The associations between functional diversity, ecological strategies, and location on the floodplain (relative elevation above and proximity to the river) was dependent on hydrogeomorphic context. The authors concluded that landforms are not transferable units across floodplains experiencing different flood regimes. It is therefore important to characterize flooding in ways that clearly link to ecological processes to better understand flood-forest interactions and predict forest responses to changes in river hydrology.

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