Quantification of Wood Habitat in Subtropical Coastal Plain Streams

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 th...

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