Swamp rabbits as indicators of optimal scale for bottomland forest management

Abstract

Specialist wildlife that evolved within forest ecosystems can be sensitive to disturbance regime changes and thereby serve as indicators of optimal scale for forest management. Bottomland hardwood (BLH) forests were once extensive within the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, but land cover conversion has reduced BLH by about 80 percent over the last century. Since 1990, a multiagency effort has been underway to restore BLH forests, with the preservation of wildlife habitat as a primary goal. Habitat loss, coupled with changes in disturbance patterns, has been associated with a decline of the swamp rabbit (Sylvilagus aquaticus), a bottomland specialist, throughout the southeastern United States. Afforestation has created a patchwork of early successional stands embedded within a larger agricultural landscape and adjacent to mature riparian stands. Swamp rabbits rely on habitat components characteristic of both early and mid to late successional BLH stands, but also need upland habitat during periods of prolonged inundation.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings 19th Central Hardwood Forest Conference

Citation

Crawford, Joanne C.; Nielsen, Clayton K.; Schauber, Eric M.; Groninger, John W. 2014. Swamp rabbits as indicators of optimal scale for bottomland forest management. In: Groninger, John W.; Holzmueller, Eric J.; Nielsen, Clayton K.; Dey, Daniel C., eds. Proceedings, 19th Central Hardwood Forest Conference; 2014 March 10-12; Carbondale, IL. General Technical Report NRS-P-142. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station: 82-83.