Significant grasslands occurred within this ecoregion on Long Island.
Dominant species of sandplain heathlands are black huckleberry, bearberry, and broom crowberry. Characteristic shrubs include lowbush blueberry and hog huckleberry on uplands and leatherleaf, sheep laurel, staggerbush, and highbush blueberry in wetlands. Extensive and dense swamp forests of Atlantic white cedar occurred through much of the ecoregion.īesides forests, major vegetation types include woodlands, shrublands (including heathland, found on infertile acidic soils), grasslands, and many types of wetlands. Other upland trees include shortleaf pine, black oak, white oak, chestnut oak, and post oak, as well as scarlet oak and southern red oak in portions of the region. Another fire-tolerant tree, blackjack oak, is common in southern and central New Jersey. Probably the most characteristic trees of the region are pitch pine and Atlantic white cedar, both of which are well adapted to fire. Both lightning and human ignitions resulted in fire intervals ranging from less than 10 years to 30 years or more. Through the early 20th century, most forests were clear-cut every 25-50 years for firewood, poles and lumber, and production of charcoal. Vegetation is highly variable, and has been shaped most strongly by water, fire, and logging. This ecoregion ranges from warm continental to cold temperate in climate. The flagship species of the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens ecoregion is the Pine Barrens tree frog. the southern edge of the last glaciation-the Wisconsin-was in northern New Jersey).
#PINE BARRENS FULL#
Most of the endemic plants, however, are distinct as varieties rather than full species, which probably reflects the relatively short time since glacial or near-glacial conditions prevailed (i.e.
One example is the endemic Pine Barrens tree frog. Vegetation diversity and species richness (number of species) and endemism (proportion of species found nowhere else) are surprisingly high for a relatively high-latitude region. It includes most of New Jersey and Long Island (New York), small portions of coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island, and most of southeastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket.
The Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens ecoregion represents the northern end of the North American Coastal Plain geological region, which in 2016 was formally recognized by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund as a global biodiversity hotspot. States: United States: NJ, NY, CT, RI, MA
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