The 2015 North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan defines 41 priority habitats for the state. More information about this habitat can be found in Section 4.3.8.

Habitat Priorities

Surveys

Determine status and distribution for Wayne's Black-throated Green Warbler, Worm-eating warbler, Swainson's Warbler, Black-billed Cuckoo (may warrant further documentation), and other neotropical migrants. (Surveys Priority)

Monitoring

Develop or enhance long-term monitoring for breeding and wintering birds, amphibians and reptiles, and mammal populations (including bats) that use this habitat (Ellis et al. 2002; Taylor and Jones 2002).

Research

Examine the relationship between habitat patch size and nesting success of shrubland birds (Burhans and Thompson 1999) and habitat use by small mammals (Litvaitis 2001).
Determine the best ways to burn these sites, or alternative management that will mimic the effects of fire at sites where birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians are being monitored.
Determine how the use of chipping (using a hydro-ax or other heavy chipping machinery) midstory and understory vegetation affects the plant and animal communities. This practice is becoming more common, particularly in areas where Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are present.
Conduct studies to obtain basic demographic information on priority birds, small mammals, amphibians, and reptiles.

Management Practices

Restore hydrology by reversing the effects of artificial drainage, as this is probably the most important action to protect pocosins.
Institute a prescribed fire regime, especially on conserved lands. Burning can often be accomplished on uplands without the use of fire-lines in transition zones between upland sites and pocosin habitats (especially in winter). This promotes a healthy transition zone between the two habitats that is critical for many plant species and allows for nutrient flow to some pocosin habitats.

Conservation Programs and Partnerships

Description

Pocosin habitats are those parts of eastern North Carolina characterized by flooded, acidic, anaerobic soils with limited decomposition and accumulating biomass. Peat deposits develop where the soil is saturated for long enough periods that organic matter cannot completely decompose. Once peat has developed, it holds water, raising water levels in the soil and making the site wetter. The shallow water tables and patterns of normal flooding result in anaerobic soil conditions that slow decomposition of biomass. Soils are acidic and nearly sterile, with available nutrients provided from periodic surface flooding of adjoining landscapes and from precipitation. The soils of streamhead pocosin habitats are flooded, acidic, and infertile.

Peatland pocosins occur on nearly flat, poorly drained areas of the outer Coastal Plain and in large shallow depressions such as Carolina bays. Streamhead pocosin habitats are patchy and limited to ravines that are permanently flooded by acidic seepage and run-off from adjacent hills. Fire history, hydrology, and drainage influence the composition of the community type, with some unfragmented examples occupying many thousands of acres.

Natural community types are determined by variation in wetness, depth of peat, and fire dynamics and include: streamhead pocosin, low pocosin, high pocosin, Pond Pine woodland, peatland and streamhead Atlantic White Cedar forest, and bay forest. The distinction between these community types may seem clear, but there are significant overlaps in the characteristics of the soils, wildlife, and plant species that occur across them.

Streamhead pocosin plant community compositions can range from dense shrub thickets to treeless canebrakes. The natural fire cycle results in open canopy pond pine forests. However, fire suppression leads to pond pine forests with a dense shrub understory. The understory is dominated by a dense evergreen shrub layer including several members of the laurel and holly families and is frequently tangled with Laurel-leaf Greenbrier. Herbs are nearly absent except in the edge (ecotone) with neighboring sandhill communities. These ecotones often support a high diversity of herb and shrub species including many rare ones.
Low pocosins occur on the deepest peats, in the interior of large domed peatlands, and in the largest peat-filled Carolina bays. They are the wettest, most nutrient-poor sites and support only low shrubs and scattered stunted pond pine trees. Often beds of pitcher plants and sphagnum moss cover large areas and bog species such as cranberries occasionally occur.
High pocosins occur in somewhat less deep peats. The shrubs, up to six or eight feet tall and impenetrably dense, are generally laced together with greenbriers and punctuated with sparse stunted pond pines.
Pond Pine woodlands occur on shallow organic deposits on the edge of peatlands and in shallow swales and bays, where tree roots can grow through the thin organic layer to reach mineral soil below. Pond Pines are tall and often fairly dense and the shrub layer is tall and usually very thick. In some pond pine woodlands the dense shrub layer is replaced by canebrakes.
Peatland Atlantic White Cedar forests occur in sites similar to pond pine woodland or high pocosin but are dominated by Atlantic White Cedar instead of pond pine. In the few remaining places where fire is frequent, streamhead Atlantic White Cedar forests are dominated by Atlantic White Cedar, though any of the species of the streamhead pocosin type also may be present in small numbers. The canopy is often dense enough that the shrub layer is fairly open. Atlantic White Cedars are sensitive to fire, but depend on fire to prepare a seedbed for regeneration. These communities probably can persist only where fire is infrequent; however, fire suppression for many decades can lead to the cedars being overtaken by widespread hardwood species such as Red Maple or Sweetgum.
Bay forests may occur in similar sites, but they are usually more associated with creeks draining out of peatland pocosins. They have a canopy dominated by evergreen hardwood Loblolly Bay, Redbay, and/or Sweetbay.

The 2005 WAP describes Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain pocosin communities as a priority habitat (see Chapter 5) (NCWRC 2005).

Location of Habitat

Extensive examples of pond pine woodlands exist in the Green Swamp, at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuges, Holly Shelter Game Land, and in Dare County at the Dare Bombing Range. Atlantic White Cedar-dominated communities still exist at Alligator River and Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuges, and in the Great Dismal Swamp. There is a significant sized stand of Atlantic White Cedar in the Buckridge Preserve (Tyrell County), the only inland site that is part of the NC Coastal Reserve.

Examples of fire-managed streamhead pocosin can be found on Sandhills Game Land, Fort Bragg, Croatan National Forest, and Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base. The Croatan National Forest, Dare Bombing Range, Camp Lejeune, and Holly Shelter Game Land do conduct some pocosin burns, but all other fire introduced into pocosin habitats tends to be on small acreages (less than 100 acres).

Problems Affecting Habitats

Peatland pocosin is a large, dominant habitat in the eastern part of the state and once occupied nearly 3 million acres from Virginia to Florida, with about 70% occurring in North Carolina. Only about 750,000 acres remain, with most of the area lost used for agriculture, forestry, and peat mining.

Logging

Logging, particularly of Atlantic white cedar and pond pine stands, altered flood regime through ditching, constructing impoundments to store water, fire suppression, and conversion to agriculture or silviculture that fragment communities can significantly impact pocosin ecosystems. The hydrologic changes resulting from ditches and canals developed to drain peatland pocosins for agriculture and forestry reduce the water holding capacity of the ecosystem and can alter the chemistry of nearby estuaries. The ditches and canals result in the rapid drainage of rainwater into estuaries that become loaded with sediment and nutrients. The deluge of freshwater into estuaries causes salinity values to plummet while the nutrients cause eutrophication and oxygen depletion. The result is severe alteration of habitat needed for wildlife in river mouths and estuaries near shore.

Fire Suppression

Fire return intervals vary widely depending on vegetation, hydrology, and extent of organic soils. Fire suppression takes the peatland pocosin out of the normal 25 to 50-year burn cycle and allows the build up of fuel, because the acidic habitat has slow decomposition and rates of soil formation. The build-up of fuel increases vulnerability to fires during dry summers. Impacts of fire suppression lead to larger, hotter fires in the vegetation and can cause ignition of peat fires that are difficult to extinguish. Similarly, the streamhead Atlantic White Cedar forest composition is affected by the fire cycle: fire suppression leads to accumulating fuel loads and a layer of thick, understory shrubs, and hardwood saplings.

Climate Change Compared to Other Threats

Overall, climate change is not the most significant threat to peatland pocosins. The most pressing climate change impacts on peatland pocosins will be from intense precipitation events and intense fire events. Other important climate change events will be from wind damage to tree species that do not regenerate and saltwater intrusion from storm surge and sea level rise. Tropical storms are predicted to become more frequent, larger, and more intense with rainfall larger than in the past. Larger rainfalls connected with violent storms will add to drainage problems in estuaries.

Pocosins play an important role in climate change by acting as a carbon sink, thereby mitigating CO₂ emissions from human activities. The carbon gained by pocosin ecosystems through photosynthesis is taken from the atmosphere and stored in biomass that does not decompose. So the primary productivity of pocosins offsets CO₂ emissions produced through use of fossil fuels and land use activities.

Pocosin communities can also be large carbon sources, adding CO₂ to the atmosphere. For example, if vegetation burns, CO₂ is released into the atmosphere adding to the greenhouse gas effect driving climate change. If peat burns, the CO₂ release will be much larger than from just the vegetation alone.

Predicted warmer temperatures and longer summer droughts will lead to increased fires. Burning vegetation and peat will generate large amounts of greenhouse gases. The change in landscape from large fires fed by climate change factors and fire suppression will burn hotter, longer, and cover more area than occurred in the natural fire cycle. The new burning cycle will compromise the quality of the habitat needed by wildlife. Table 4.22 summarizes the comparison of climate change with other existing threats.

Impacts to Wildlife

In general, little detailed information exists for many wildlife species that use pocosin habitats because of the impenetrable nature of these communities. Few surveys have been done on a long-term basis, which makes land management decisions difficult. We also lack detailed information about populations of small mammals, bats, reptiles, and amphibians in pocosin habitats (Mitchell 1992). Black Bears are dependent on the large undisturbed areas that pocosins offer in the east. Further reduction in this habitat type could impact bear populations.

The remoteness and thickness of the vegetation in the peatland pocosin makes it the ideal habitat for resident and migratory species and protects them from human disturbance. Pocosins are particularly important for wintering birds because of the high amount of soft mast available. Greenbrier, Red Bay, Sweet Bay, and many ericaceous shrubs produce large Sandhill streamheads. These species occur in other types of habitat and are not as confined to the Sandhills ecoregion.

Pocosin habitats are important for a variety of shrub-scrub birds, though we lack status and distribution data (Karriker 1993). Red-cockaded Woodpecker exists in some of these pond pine-dominated sites where suitable habitat also occurs in the uplands. A study by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) in the Sandhills demonstrated a high territory density of shrub-nesting birds in fire-managed streamhead pocosin, including the Common Yellowthroat, Indigo Bunting, Eastern Towhee, and Yellow-breasted Chat. This same study found a relatively high density of cavity nesters such as the Brown-headed Nuthatch, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Carolina Wren. Loss of this fire-maintained habitat has caused fragmentation of Red-cockaded Woodpecker habitat across the landscape. Fire-suppressed streamhead pocosins supported significantly lower densities of nine bird species but had higher numbers of Carolina Chickadee, Hooded Warbler, and Red-eyed Vireo.

quoted from the 2015 North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan

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