Piney Woods forests
Piney Woods forests, located in the humid eastern part of Texas, represent a distinct temperate coniferous forest biome that contrasts with the arid landscapes of much of the state. This region receives ample rainfall ranging from 35 to 50 inches annually, primarily due to moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, creating a lush environment characterized by high humidity and temperatures. Spanning roughly 54,000 square miles, the Piney Woods extend from Texarkana to Tomball and into parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The forest is home to diverse flora and fauna, including various tree species like longleaf and loblolly pine, alongside a rich array of wildlife, such as deer, foxes, and numerous bird species.
The Piney Woods also contain unique ecosystems like the Big Thicket, known for its rich biodiversity and mixture of habitats, including wetlands and uplands. Conservation efforts are underway to restore the longleaf pine ecosystems, which have drastically declined due to logging and habitat conversion. Initiatives like the America's Longleaf Initiative aim to regenerate these forests, addressing both ecological diversity and climate change impacts. Overall, the Piney Woods forests are vital not only for their ecological significance but also as a resource for wildlife and a buffer against climate challenges.
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Subject Terms
Piney Woods forests
- Category: Forest Biomes.
- Geographic Location: North America.
- Summary: The humid eastern end of Texas contains pine forest more typical of the southeastern United States—and distinct from the remainder of the mostly arid and semiarid state.
The forests of eastern Texas are known within the state as the Piney Woods, or Pineywoods. The term evolved to distinguish pine forest in this area from drier post-oak savanna immediately to the west. This temperate coniferous forest occurs primarily due to higher, year-round rainfall—35 to 50 inches (89 to 127 centimeters) per year—which is derived mainly from moist air rising from the warm Gulf of Mexico. Humidity and temperatures are typically high.
Average temperatures in August range from 72 to 95 degrees F (22 to 35 degrees C), and average temperatures in January range from 36 to 58 degrees F (2 to 14 degrees C). The Piney Woods region extends roughly from Texarkana southwest to Tomball, Texas; east to Orange, Texas; and north back to Texarkana. It is part of a larger pine-hardwood ecosystem extending into the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The biome covers approximately 54,000 square miles (141,000 square kilometers).
Flora and Fauna
Geologic rifting and uplift after Pangaea led to several features, notably the Coastal Plain (southeastern Texas), the East Texas Basin (east-central Texas), and the Sabine Uplift (northeastern Texas). Sediment washing onto receding coastline created belts of sand underlain by clays that influence current vegetation distribution, including longleaf pine concentrated on sandy ridges in the southern Coastal Plain portion of the biome. Sandy ridges also harbor seeps, springs, and bogs, which greatly influence endemic (found only here) botanical diversity, evident in such manifestations as carnivorous pitcher plants and other species.
The rolling East Texas Basin farther inland, with elevations of 200 to 500 feet (60 to 150 meters), hosts predominantly loblolly pine, with post-oak savanna at its western end. The Sabine Uplift to the northeast harbors mostly mixed shortleaf pine and hardwood forest. Cutting down through these landscapes over time are (east to west, respectively) the Sabine, Neches, and Trinity River courses and basins. Along river bottoms are depositional sediments with fertile soils, and hardwood forests of water oak, sweet gum, magnolia, elm, tupelo, and ash that harbor the highest biodiversity of any Texas habitat, providing food, water, and cover for wildlife.
Tree species composition in the Piney Woods Forests biome can change with a small variation in average water depth along riverbanks. Bottomland systems support as many as 189 species of trees and shrubs, 42 woody vines, 75 grasses, 802 herbaceous plants, 116 species of fish, 31 species of amphibians, 54 species of reptiles, 273 species of birds, and 45 species of mammals. Some of the mammals found here include: armadillo, white-tailed deer, Virginia opossum, gray fox, bobcat, ring-tailed cat, rabbits, and many other small mammals. The forest also contains the venemous cottonmouth snake.
Conservation
Several national forests were established in the 1930s and 1940s on cut-over and abandoned eastern Texas timberlands. The southernmost area of the region is called the Big Thicket for the forests that once thrived there. The Big Thicket is ecologically different from the rest of the region; the land today is mostly low-lying wetlands and swamps. An interesting and diverse mix of habitats has also developed in this area.
Big Thicket is a combination of bottomland forest, sandy upland habitat, and a mixture of western and eastern plant species in the southern part of the biome. Cacti and roadrunners live near orchids and cypress trees. It is so renowned for its high biological diversity that it was set up as a National Preserve (part of the National Parks system) in 1974. The last Texas sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker occurred in the Big Thicket. Another species seriously reduced through logging and hunting is the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, largely dependent on open, fire-adapted longleaf pine ecosystems that have been replaced with denser, faster-growing loblolly pine stands. Longleaf pine has been reduced to approximately 5 percent of its former distribution in the southeastern United States.
There is a trend toward restoration of longleaf pine ecosystems within the Big Thicket National Preserve, East Texas National Forests, and smaller nongovernmental nature reserves in the biome. Prescribed burning and planting of longleaf pine is occurring. The Louisiana black bear is also slowly making a comeback in the Piney Woods region. Private timberlands have recently changed ownership from long-term forest management firms such as Temple-Inland to shorter-term timber management organizations (TMOs), which can be more inclined to sell land after timber harvest. This trend could lead to increased fragmentation of some Piney Woods forest into smaller ownership parcels, some of which may change to residential suburban or exurban land use.
In 2009, The Conservation Fund joined more than 20 nonprofits and government agencies in the America’s Longleaf Initiative to rebuild the shrinking stands of longleaf pines across the south and southeast. It is hoped that the regeneration of some of these forest lands will mitigate the effects of global climate change in some capacity. This could include: increasing carbon sequestration; the creation of new, much-needed bird stopovers (due to rising temperatures); and the building of more buffering zones, such as wetlands, to absorb the impact of more severe hurricanes and flooding events.
Bibliography
"Big Thicket." National Park Service, 22 June 2020, www.nps.gov/bith/learn/historyculture/logging.htm. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
Crocket, G. L. Two Centuries in East Texas: A History of San Augustine County and Surrounding Territory. Dallas, TX: Southwest Press, 1962.
Deep Indigo Collective and David Harrison. "Who Came Before? Impact of Humans on East Texas Ecology." The Tyler Loop, 20 Sept. 2021, thetylerloop.com/who-came-before-the-impact-of-humans-on-east-texas-ecology/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2022.
Frye, Roy G. and D. A. Curtis. Texas Water and Wildlife: An Assessment of Direct Impacts to Wildlife Habitat from Future Water Development Projects. Austin: Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife, 1990.
Gunter, Peter Y. A. The Big Thicket: An Ecological Reevaluation. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1993.
Jackson, J. A. In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2004.
Maxwell, R. S. and R. D. Baker. Sawdust Empire, The Texas Lumber Industry 1830–1940. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1983.
“Pineywoods Wildlife.” Texas Parks and Wildlife, tpwd.texas.gov/education/resources/texas-junior-naturalists/regions/pineywoods/pineywoods-wildlife. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.