Quantification of Wood Habitat in Subtropical Coastal Plain Streams

Abstract

To assess the importance of woody debris in two relatively unaltered Coastal Plain streams in the southeastern United States, a line intersect technique, developed by foresters, was used to estimate volume, mass, surface area, and spatial distribution. The ash-free dry mass of in-channei woody material was 6.5 kg/m2 of stream channel bottom in the sixth-order Ogeechee River and 5.0 kg/m2 in the fourth-order Black Creek. Most wood is located near the erosional bank in these meandering streams. These wood mass estimates are much higher than expected for middle-order streams and are similar to those from several small headwater streams in other regions. Due to their very low slopes (<0.02%), these streams appear to have insufficient stream power to move large woody material. Snag, or woody, habitat is the major stable substrate in these sandy-bottomed streams and is a site of high invertebrate diversity and productivity. In-channel snag surface area per square metre of channel bottom was 0.249–0.433 m2 in the Ogeechee and 0.191–0.379 m2 in Black Creek, depending on the hydrograph stage. With invertebrate biomass of 6.6 g dry mass/m2 of snag surface, this results in an invertebrate biomass of at least 1.88 g/m2 of channel bottom. Wood is also important to fishes, providing a rich source of invertebrate food, habitat, and cover. In addition to its obvious biological role, wood enhances the ability of a stream to process and conserve nutrient and energy inputs and has a major influence on the hydrodynamic behavior of the river. The quantification of wood habitat seems mandatory to assess past or potential impacts of snag removal on ecosystem processes in low-gradient streams.