Wildlife of the Mid-Atlantic: A Complete Reference Manual - Hardcover

Rappole, John H.

9780812239829: Wildlife of the Mid-Atlantic: A Complete Reference Manual

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812239822 ISBN 13: 9780812239829

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007

The Mid-Atlantic is a geographically and biologically diverse region, ranging from the sandy coastal beaches and blackwater swamps of southeastern Virginia to the boreal bogs and spruce-fir forests of northern Pennsylvania and the highest peaks of West Virginia's Appalachian Mountains. Scientists identify six distinct geologic provinces in the area, along with four climatic zones. As John H. Rappole explains, these varied landforms and climates create the environment for the variety of wildlife found in the region.

This well-illustrated volume is the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the wildlife of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Approximately 550 species are described, including all birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians known to inhabit the area, excluding open ocean species. Each species is illustrated and a distribution map is included with every entry. The species accounts contain a physical description, data on habitat and distribution, habits, diet, reproduction, conservation status, and one or more key references.

Sections cover the major habitat types in the region (including descriptions and photos), physical geography, climate, and conservation challenges. In addition, the book has a glossary of nearly 400 technical terms. An appendix contains descriptions of casual, accidental, hypothetical, and extinct species, an index allows readers to locate specific information quickly, and a thorough bibliography suggests additional reading.

Written by a respected scientist, Wildlife of the Mid-Atlantic provides the only complete summary of information on all the terrestrial species of the area, based on the most recent research. Designed to meet the needs of professional as well as nonprofessional readers, it is an essential resource for all natural history enthusiasts, from students to teachers, from birders to ornithologists, and from avid outdoors people to armchair naturalists.

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About the Author:

John H. Rappole is a Research Scientist at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park's Conservation and Research Center. He is the author of twelve books, including Birds of the Mid-Atlantic Region and The Ecology of Migrant Birds.

Introduction

The Mid-Atlantic region, for the purposes of this work, includes Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia (Figure 1). This area encompasses an impressive array of habitats and topography, ranging from the sandy coastal beaches and blackwater swamps of southeastern Virginia to the boreal bogs and spruce-fir forests of northern Pennsylvania and the highest peaks of West Virginia's Appalachian Mountains. In line with this diversity, the region has an extraordinary richness of terrestrial vertebrate fauna: 72 amphibian species; 62 reptiles; 81 mammals; and 331 birds. "Terrestrial" in this case means those that spend most or all of their life cycle on land, and thus excludes most pelagic vertebrates, e.g., seabirds, whales, and sea turtles, as well as fish. Some anomalous species are included, like the Hellbender and sirens, which are aquatic in all life cycle phases, because to exclude them would be to fall just short of complete coverage for the Amphibia.

An additional purpose of this book is to summarize the conservation status and major problems confronting vertebrate populations in the Mid-Atlantic. This part of the country has experienced anthropogenic effects as radical as any on earth over the four centuries since European settlement began, and these changes have had profound effects on the area's wildlife. For instance, moose, lynx, bison, elk, cougars, wolves, Trumpeter Swans, Whooping Cranes, Passenger Pigeons, and Carolina Parakeets were part of the terrestrial vertebrate fauna when Lederer first pushed his westward explorations to the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the late 1600s (Talbot 1672). Thomas Lewis surveyed northern Virginia's Shenandoah-Rockingham county line in the mid-1700s, recording not only the large mammals and birds observed, but the dominant tree species as well, providing a glimpse of what the primeval forest must have been like in the Appalachians (Lewis 1746). Now, in the early twenty-first Century, few old growth stands of any habitat type remain in the region: Cook's Forest in northwestern Pennsylvania and Swallow River Falls State Park in the Cumberland of western Maryland serving as two notable exceptions. Structurally, at least, it makes quite a difference whether a forest is composed of trees 23 m (710 ft) in diameter at breast height (dbh) or even larger, as was the case in pre-settlement times, versus today in which few trees exceed a meter in dbh. Unfortunately, we can only surmise what difference these structural dissimilarities might make in terms of the vertebrate communities.

Most early explorers and settlers had things on their mind other than the extraordinary natural diversity surrounding them, and made few notes on animals or plants that weren't edible or dangerous. For instance, John Lederer, a German explorer, made three trips to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the late 1600s, in which he catalogued the presence of deer, elk, buffalo, wolves, and mountain lions, but little else in the way of wildlife (Talbot 1672). Mark Catesby's (17311743) superb The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands provided the first extensive treatment of terrestrial vertebrate species for North America, which included not only paintings of each animal and plant discussed, but a brief natural history account as well. His volumes include accounts for 103 birds, 8 mammals, 3 amphibians, and 28 reptiles. Although Catesby's volumes focused on areas south of the Mid-Atlantic, he lived for some time in Virginia, and most of his accounts are relevant for species from the Mid-Atlantic region.

Another relatively early study of Mid-Atlantic natural history is that provided by Thomas Jefferson (1784). Although comprised largely of lists, Jefferson's book catalogued some of the major flora and fauna of Virginia, which included West Virginia at the time of his writing. Works like that of Catesby, Jefferson, William Bartram (1791), and other early naturalists (cf Linzey 1998, Johnston 2003) allow us to establish a baseline of at least some of what existed in temperate eastern North America at that time, nearly two centuries after initial colonization.

The first detailed life history accounts of terrestrial, Mid-Atlantic vertebrates were done on the birds by Alexander Wilson (18081831), assisted by George Ord and Charles Lucien Bonaparte. Audubon's work (18401844) also focused mainly on birds, and included information from many different parts of North America beyond the Mid-Atlantic. His Quadrupeds of North America provided paintings and detailed life history accounts for 37 species of mammals, most of which are, or were, found in the Mid-Atlantic (Audubon and Bachman 18461854). David Johnston (2003) has provided an excellent summary of historical natural history literature for the region. He too focused on birds, and the State of Virginia, but he identifies many of the main historical natural history references pertinent for the entire region. His work, and that of other studies summarizing historical literature for other major taxa (e.g., Linzey's 1998 The Mammals of Virginia and Green and Pauley's 1987 Amphibians and Reptiles in West Virginia) make clear that systematic efforts to catalog all of the terrestrial vertebrates within the Mid-Atlantic, and to provide the details of the life history for each species, are really a twentieth century phenomenon. Only recently have detailed life history accounts been completed for most of the terrestrial vertebrates of North America. For birds, such accounts became available through the Birds of North America project, which began with publication of the Barn Owl account in 1992 and was completed with the Dark-eyed Junco account (#716) in 2002 (Poole and Gill 19922002). The American Society of Mammalogy's (19692004) "Mammalian Species" was begun in 1969, with publication of the account for Waterhouse's Leaf-nosed Bat, and currently stands at 760 accounts, covering most North American mammals as well as many from elsewhere in the world. The national herpetological societies have no comparable program, but Petranka's (1998) Salamanders of the United States and Canada presents an outstandingly thorough treatment for all members of that group.

Up-to-date life history summaries for members of the major taxa of terrestrial vertebrates (i.e., birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians) do not exist for all the states in the region. Those that do exist, however, are excellent. These include Green and Pauley's (1987) Amphibians and Reptiles in West Virginia; Martof et al.'s (1980) Amphibians and Reptiles of the Carolinas and Virginia; Linzey's (1998) The Mammals of Virginia; White and White's (2002) Amphibians and Reptiles of Delmarva; Merritt's (1987) Guide to the Mammals of Pennsylvania; Webster et al.'s (1985) Mammals of the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland; and Hulse et al.'s (2001) Amphibians and Reptiles of Pennsylvania and the Northeast. Wildlife of the Mid-Atlantic is an attempt to take the next step, pulling together summaries from the detailed life history accounts along with distributional and conservation information from state treatments. No publication effort prior to this book presents detailed information on all the terrestrial vertebrates in the Mid-Atlantic region in a single volume, including life history summaries, distribution maps and depictions (photo or drawing), conservation information, and a source in the literature where students can turn for additional information.

Physical Environment

Six major geologic provinces are found in the region: 1) Coastal Plain, 2) Piedmont, 3) Blue Ridge, 4) Ridge and Valley, 5) Appalachian Plateau, and 6) Central Lowlands. The Coastal Plain stretches 3,500 km (2,200 mi) along the edge of the continent from Massachusetts to the Mexican border, forming the boundary between land and ocean. In the Mid-Atlantic, the southern end of this province is about 200 km (120 mi) wide at the Virginia-North Carolina border, although it narrows sharply and disappears at its northern end in central New Jersey where the Piedmont extends to the ocean shore. Several of the great cities of the Mid-Atlantic, such as Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, are located along the boundary between the Coastal Plain and Piedmont provinces, known as the "Fall Line." Here rivers like the James, Delaware, and Potomac flow out of the hard bedrock of the rolling Piedmont onto the sediments of the level Coastal Plain, and waterfalls mark the head of navigation.

The Appalachian Mountains are the predominant physiographic characteristic of the Mid-Atlantic, and the Piedmont Province forms the easternmost of the 4 provinces that are essentially subcategories of this single geological feature (Piedmont, Blue Ridge, Ridge and Valley, and Appalachian Plateau). The hills of the Piedmont extend westward from the Fall Line to the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, Maryland, and southern Pennsylvania, and to the mountains of the Ridge and Valley of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Blue Ridge is a long, narrow province consisting of a single ridge or series of parallel ridges and valleys running generally from southwest to northeast 885 km (550 mi) from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to north Georgia. North and west of the Blue Ridge is a wider series (up to 130 km) (80 mi) of higher ridges and deeper valleys that also run southwest to northeast; these constitute the Ridge and Valley Province, which extends nearly 2,000 km (1,200 mi) from the St. Lawrence River at the Canadian border to central Alabama. West and north of this province are the steep hills of the Appalachian Plateau, covering most of West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. A sixth province, the Central Lowlands, occurs in only a small portion of our region, namely that part of Pennsylvania bordering Lake Erie, where Presque Isle and the city of Erie are located.

Four major climatic zones occur in the Mid-Atlantic: 1) the Austral is characterized by hot summers, mild winters, and moderate precipitation, and is found only in southeastern Virginia; 2) the Carolinian is characterized by hot summers, cool winters, and moderate precipitation, and covers the Piedmont region and valleys of the southern Appalachians; 3) the Alleghenian is characterized by warm summers, cold winters, and moderate precipitation, and covers most of the Appalachian Highlands; and 4) the Canadian is characterized by cool summers, harsh winters, and moderate precipitation, and is found only at the highest elevations in our region.

Living Environment

The varied landforms and climates of the Mid-Atlantic create the basis for the diversity of plant and animal communities or "habitats" that occur here. Specific associations or communities of plants and animals constitute a habitat for a given species, and, with experience, one can learn to recognize these communities and know which organisms to expect in them. However, there are differences among the classifications for the living environment provided by biologists. For instance, C. Hart Merriam (1894) recognized 3 major "life zones" for the Mid-Atlantic based on temperature (isotherms for the mean temperature of the 6 hottest weeks of the year): Lower Austral, Upper Austral, and Transitional (Figure 5). Dice (1943) modified this system, replacing the "life zone" classification with "biotic provinces." In doing so, he used characteristics of temperature, topography, and soil to define "province" boundaries, similar in many cases to those drawn by Merriam. Thus his "Austroriparian Province" roughly matches Merriam's "Lower Austral"; his "Carolinian" approximates Merriam's "Upper Austral"; and his "Canadian" is similar to that of Merriam's "Transitional." These and similar attempts to apply subjective taxonomic rules lumping large numbers of ecological communities together retain interest because they reflect reality at a gross level. For instance, there is no doubt that something of considerable ecological significance occurs in southeastern Virginia, where many

species of animals reach the northern extremity of their distribution along the boundary of Dice's "Austroriparian Biotic Province." For this reason, terms from the various attempts at community classification at continental scales, like "Austroriparian" and "Transitional," remain in common natural history parlance, long after their theoretical basis has been more or less discredited. The fundamental problem with these various organizational efforts is that no single principle or set of principles can explain the distributions of all organisms, because the distribution of each species is the result not only of factors affecting all other species in its community, e.g., changes in climate and topography, but also of factors unique to itself, e.g., the length of time that it has existed as a species, and the various chance mutations through which it has evolved over that period. To cite extreme examples, one must take into consideration the breakup of Pangaea 200 million years ago to understand the current distribution of Hellbenders (Cryptobranchidae), which are found only in China, Japan, and the eastern United States, while the breeding distributions of more than 150 species of birds have changed in a matter of decades in response to global warming (Mathews et al. 2004).

To avoid these complications, while recognizing some utility in terms of community classification, ecologists have reverted to strictly descriptive mapping of the major plant communities. Like the higher-level groupings discussed above, and for the same reasons, these plant community classifications are not always indicative of the animal communities that they contain. Nevertheless, they have the virtue of being largely objective in that they reflect mapping exercises of major plant associations. Perhaps the most widely used of these classifications is that developed by K�chler (1975) (Figure 6). His classification includes nine principal habitat types for the Mid-Atlantic region: Northern Cordgrass Prairie; Northeastern Spruce-Fir Forest; Beech-Maple Forest; Mixed Mesophytic Forest; Appalachian Oak Forest; Northern Hardwoods; Northeastern Oak-Pine Forest; Oak-Hickory-Pine Forest; and Southern Floodplain Forest. It is important to note that K�chler's habitat map is titled, Potential Natural Vegetation of the United States (K�chler 1975). Thus he shows what he believes would be present in the region, if humans had not modified the habitats. Of course, humans have modified every habitat, so what you find at any given site could range anywhere from a hundred-year-old oak forest to a parking lot. Almost all sites are in some seral stage short of the climax vegetation communities whose distribution is hypothesized in K�chler's map. Also, global warming has caused rapid change in the distribution of some communities, a process that is in progress at a rate scientists are only beginning to understand.

In defining a habitat classification for the Mid-Atlantic region, I follow a modification of K�chler's system. I add three major habitats that his classification does not address: Coastal Waters and Shoreline, Agricultural and Residential,...

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