image displayed if flash reader not installed

Tampa Bay Watershed Plant Communities

Forest and Shrub Plant Communities

General land cover maps were used to identify potential natural communities in the basin (Kautz et al., 1993). The maps identify 22 different land cover classifications: 17 classes of natural vegetation, 1 aquatic class, and 4 classes of disturbed land. Although not completely accurate, these classifications do provide a relative understanding of the type and extent of natural communities in the Tampa Bay Basin.

Approximate acreage and percentage of basin area occupied by each natural community type and describes its characteristics.

Community Type	Area in Acres	Characteristics
Coastal strand	12	Occurs on well drained sandy coastlines and includes typically zoned vegetation of upper beach, nearby dunes, or coastal rock formations.
Dry prairie	74,353	Large treeless grasslands and shrub lands on very flat terrain, interspersed with scattered cypress domes, cypress strands, isolated freshwater marshes, and hammocks.
Pinelands	67,393	Includes north and south Florida pine flatwoods, south Florida pine rocklands, scrubby flatwoods, and commercial pine plantations. Cypress domes, bayheads, tidal swamps, and freshwater marshes are commonly interspersed in isolated depressions.
Sand pine scrub	4,735	Xeric plant community dominated by overstory of sand pine. Occurs in well drained sands deposited along former shore lines and islands of ancient seas.
Sandhill	2,949	Xeric plant community dominated by overstory of scattered longleaf pine, along with understory of turkey oak and bluejack oak. Occurs in areas of rolling terrain on deep, well-drained sands.
Xeric oak scrub	9,165	Hardwood community consisting of clumps of low-growing oaks interspersed with white sand. Occurs in areas of deep, well washed sterile sand.
Mixed hardwood pine	45,152	Southern extension of the Piedmont southern mixed hardwoods, occurring mainly on clay soils of the northern Panhandle. Also includes upland forests in which a mixture of conifers and hardwoods dominate overstory.
Hardwood hammock	101,179	Includes major upland hardwood associations that occur statewide on fairly rich sandy soils.
Forest Wetlands
Cypress swamp	37,466	Regularly inundated communities that form forested buffer along large rivers, creeks, and lakes, or occur in depressions as circular domes or linear strands. Strongly dominated by bald cypress or pond cypress.
Hardwood swamp	59,510	Association of wetland-adapted trees, composed either of pure stands of hardwoods or a hardwood-cypress mixture that occurs on organic soils and forms the forested floodplain of nonalluvial rivers, creeks, and broad lake basins.
Bay swamp	unknown	Type of hardwood swamp often found in shallow depressions in pinelands or at base of sandy ridges where seepage maintains constantly wet soils. Broadleaf evergreen trees such as sweetbay, swamp bay, and loblolly bay dominate overstory.
Shrub swamp	3,677	Dominated by low-growing, woody shrubs or small trees, usually found in wetlands changed by natural or human processes, such as altered hydroperiod, fire, clear-cutting or land clearing, and siltation
Mangrove swamp	9,142	Dense, brackish water swamps, usually dominated by red, black, and white mangroves that occur along low-energy shorelines and in protected, tidally influenced bays of southern Florida. Comprises freeze-intolerant tree species that are distributed south of a line from Cedar Key on the Gulf coast to St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast.
Bottomland hardwood	unknown	Wetland-adapted forests composed of pure stands of hardwoods or a mixture of hardwoods and cypress. They occur throughout the state on organic soils and form the forested floodplains of nonalluvial rivers, creeks, and broad lake basins. Tree species include a mixed overstory containing black gum, water tupelo, bald cypress, blue beech, and swamp ash.
Disturbed
Grassland and agricultural lands	447,511	Upland communities with very low-growing grasses and forbs. Intensively managed sites such as improved pastures, lawns, golf courses, road shoulders, cemeteries, or weedy fallow agricultural fields.
Shrub and brush	133,213	Includes different situations where natural upland communities have recently been disturbed and are recovering through natural succession.
Exotic plant communities	unknown	Upland and wetland areas dominated by invasive non-native species that outgrow and outcompete native plant communities
Barren land	315,381	Developed areas such as roads, parking lots, and buildings.

Of more than 1.6 million acres in the Tampa Bay Basin, disturbed communities predominate, covering almost 900,000 acres, or 55 percent. Natural communities occupy almost 740,000 acres, or 45 percent. In the disturbed communities, grassland and agricultural land occupy the largest area (almost 450,000 acres, or 28 percent), followed by barren land, which includes urban developed areas (about 316,000 acres, or 19 percent) and shrub and brush (about 133,000 acres, or 8 percent).

Uplands comprise almost 302,000 acres, or 18 percent of the basin’s total area. Predominant upland types are hardwood hammock (more than 101,000 acres), dry prairie (almost 75,000 acres), pinelands (about 67,000 acres), and mixed hardwood pine (about 42,000 acres). Other upland communities such as sand pine scrub, sandhill, and oak scrub occupy a total of almost 17,000 acres.

Wetlands constitute almost 163,000 acres, or 10 percent of the basin’s total area. Major wetland types include hardwood swamp (almost 60,000 acres), freshwater marsh (about 46,000 acres), and cypress swamp (about 37,000 acres), with other wetland types such as mangrove swamp, coastal salt marsh, and shrub swamp covering a total of about 20,000 acres.

Open water (including both fresh water and salt water) occupies about 273,000 acres, or 17 percent of the basin. It includes the basin’s inland freshwater lakes, ponds, rivers, and creeks; the brackish and saline waters of Tampa Bay’s estuaries, bays, and tidal creeks; and portions of the neighboring Gulf of Mexico.