The Role Of Disturbance In The Long-Term Viability Of A Coastal Maritime Forest Fragment

The maritime holly forest is a unique assemblage of species dominated by the broadleaf evergreen, Ilex opaca (American holly). Due to the highly restricted occurrence of this forest community to only two locations on barrier islands in New York and New Jersey, it has been classified as a critically imperiled community (global conservation status rank of G1; NatureServe 2004) because of extreme rarity or very few remaining acres. The only two examples known of the maritime holly forest include: the Sunken Forest (SF; 16 ha) occurring on Fire Island National Seashore, a barrier island protecting Long Island, NY; and the Sandy Hook (SH) holly forest (30 ha) occurring on a barrier spit on the NJ shore that is a unit of Gateway National Recreation Area (GNRA). This project was born from the uncertainty surrounding key conservation issues, and in 2004 was listed as the primary research priority for Fire Island National Seashore due to the uniqueness of the SF among maritime forests of the Atlantic coast, its prominence in the park's enabling legislation and Resource Stewardship Plan, and its interpretive value to the visiting public. An important objective of the research was to assist the park in developing reasonable conservation goals for sustaining the essential characteristics of the SF. This research investigated whether canopy constituents of this maritime holly forest are maintaining themselves under the current levels of herbivory and other disturbances. The authors present this report in executive summary format through a series of questions that probe different aspects of vegetation dynamics of the SF. The authors do this for two reasons. First, the scope of the work is broad and includes research approaches and methods that are somewhat disparate and unrelated, making the presentation of the full work awkward. Second, the research on which the report is based already appears in the peer-reviewed scientific literature as discrete units with specific objectives and methodologies. We refer the reader directly to those published accounts for the methodological details.