Florida Habitats

A Florida habitat may be named by its geological features such as a Depression marsh, or by the predominate type of plant present, as in a Cypress swamp or Pine Flatwoods.

These are Florida's plant communities which are so evolved to fill a specific niche that their presence is used to establish habitat boundaries.

Menu - Freshwater Marshes Salt Marsh Wet Prairie Hardwood Swamp Cypress Swamp Mangrove Swamp Bay Swamp Hammocks Dry Prairie Pine Flatwoods  Pine Rocklands Scrub Sandhill Coastal Strand

Threats to Florida's habitats include introduced exotic species, destruction & fragmentation through development, altered water flows and the suppression of naturally occurring fires.

Plants & animals are so dependent on one another and the conditions present in a particular type of habitat that when one element is changed or removed the entire system is affected. This can ultimately result in the collapse of a habitat or an entire ecosystem.

Fire & succession of species

Fire plays an important role in determining the type of plant and animal habitat found in Florida.

Periodic fires clear debris and thick shrubby growth from the understory which prevents many of the smaller but no less important herbaceous plants from growing. Thus fire provides open spaces and important food sources for animals such as the threatened Florida Scrub Jay and the Gopher Tortoise.

Florida rosemary and the Sand pine tree need fire to reproduce and many other plants regenerate quickly after a fire, stimulated into blooming and setting seed.

Succession of species begins with plants that initially colonize an area, these are mostly annual plants that thrive in full sun and open, exposed conditions.

As time goes on the annuals will gradually be replaced by perennials, pine seedlings and shrubs which if undisturbed will mature into a pine forest. In such a forest, with a dense canopy and understory of shrubs the growth of more pine is inhibited because to develop pine seedlings need open areas with strong sunlight.

Eventually, hardwood species such as oaks which tolerate the shaded conditions will gradually replace the pines, resulting in hardwood forests or on a more restricted scale, hardwood hammocks.

This process of succession ultimately results in what is referred to as a climax community, which indicates a somewhat stable population of the species best adapted to the climate and nutrients/food sources present at that location.

When areas experience fire at different times the result is a natural landscape in various stages of succession that a wider variety of plants and animals are able to utilize as habitat.

The following are some examples of Florida habitats and rough intervals at which natural fire historically occurs.

Pine Flatwoods, 1 - 8 years

Dry Prairie, 1 - 4 years

Scrub Habitats, 6 - 20 years

Hardwood Hammocks, 30 - 50 years (or longer)

Fires can even spread into swamps, although this may be as infrequent as once every 100 - 200 years.

What makes a habitat a wetland?

Another major influence on Florida habitat type is the presence of water. Low lying areas and the presence and depth of an underlying strata of "hardpan", which consists of a mixture of sand and clay or limestone causes water to accumulate.

The length of time that these wetland habitat remain flooded is referred to as the hydroperiod. Hydroperiods vary in length and may be as brief as a couple of weeks or as long as a year or more. Some habitats never dry out completely while others dry only every couple years, each one supporting a different native plant community.

Plants that have adapted to these various flooding cycles rely on them to reduce competition from other plants and to reproduce. Bald Cypress trees for example, associated with flooded swamps - need dry periods in order for their seeds to germinate. Animals such as the Wood stork (Mycteria americana) and Sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) time their breeding cycles to coincide with wetland habitat hydroperiods, amphibians also rely on this periodic flooding cycle to create breeding areas relatively safe from predators such as fish.

Wetland habitats are defined as areas that are inundated or have saturated soils for long enough periods of time to support plants which are adapted to, and able to grow and reproduce in saturated or anaerobic soils.

For a complete technical description of the rules for identifying and delineating wetlands as set forth by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, click here. (P.D.F. format)

Endangered and Threatened Animals of Florida and Their Habitats

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