New Jersey Pine Barrens

Category: Forest Biomes.

Geographic Location: North America.

Summary: The New Jersey Pine Barrens is located in the southern portion of New Jersey, and is dominated by expansive stands of pitch pines over sandy soils.

The New Jersey Pine Barrens, also referred to as NJPB or the Pinelands, consists of approximately 1.25–1.4 million acres (505,857–566,560 hectares) of heavily forested coastal plains in southeastern New Jersey. This is an area consisting of sandy acidic soil where the dominant tree types are pines, oaks, and, in wetland areas, cedars. Despite being located in a densely populated state, the Pinelands remain mostly rural and sparsely populated. On the east, they are bounded primarily by salt marshes along bays connecting to the North Atlantic Ocean. Other boundaries are adjacent to farmlands and deciduous forests.

The NJPB is the largest section of an unconnected ecoregion known as the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens, which includes the southern half of Long Island in New York; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; and a small section of barrens near Albany, New York. Pinelands National Reserve in New Jersey occupies 22 percent of the state, and is underlain by aquifers containing some of the country’s purest water. The Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan restricts development on 934,000 acres (377,976 hectares), or about 70 percent of the original NJPB.

The mean temperature in the Pinelands is 33 degrees F (0.3 degrees C) in January and 75 degrees F (23.8 degrees C) in June, with annual precipitation totaling 44 inches (1,123 millimeters). The Pine Barrens, positioned on the Outer Coastal Plain of eastern North America, has terrain that includes globally rare pine plains. They are comprised of dwarf, 3–6 foot (1–2 meter) pitch pines, low-angle slopes dominated by dry, fire-swept pitch pine-shrub; and oak forests with a maximum elevation of 205 feet (62.5 meters). These pine plains are supplemented in dark swamp areas by Atlantic white cedar.

The Pinelands occurs over coarse, unconsolidated quartz sand of the Cohansey and Kirkwood formations. Relict sand wedges measure up to 8 feet (2.5 meters) deep and 1.3 feet (0.4 meters) wide, indicating previous existence of permafrost, likely during late Pleistocene times. Today, deposits contain an expansive, uncontained aquifer of uncontaminated but acidic, nutrient-poor water. The water table is within 23 feet (7 meters) of the surface in the uplands and can reach the surface in the lowlands and swamps. Swamp soils contain up to 12 inches (300 millimeters) of decaying organic material, compared to upland soils, which typically do not have an organic horizon more than 2–4 inches (50–100 millimeters) deep.

Vegetation

More than 800 species and varieties of plants have been documented for the NJPB, including 92 which are considered threatened or endangered. Several species are orchids, such as pink lady’s slipper, which is native to the Pine Barrens.

Upland forests constitute 62 percent of the forested area, and most of that space is dominated by homogeneous stands of pine-oak forest, with pitch pine (Pinus rigida) interspersed with oak (Quercus spp.), including white, black, post, and scarlet varieties. The understory, dominated by ericaceous shrubs, contains huckleberry (Gaylussacia spp.) and blueberry (Vaccinium spp.), with shrub oaks (Q. ilicifolia and Q. marilandica).

The lowland swamps of the NJPB generally have a closed canopy composed of red maple (Acer rubrum), black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), and Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides). Many rare, endemic (found only here) plants such as Knieskern’s beaked rush (Rhynchospora knieskernii) and Pine Barrens livid sedge (Carex livida), as well as many orchids and carnivorous plants, are found in the NJPB, which also provides habitat to the Pine Barrens treefrog (Hyla andersoni) and the northern pine snake (Pituophis melanoleucus).

Fauna

The Pinelands is home to many species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Approximately 35 species of mammals inhabit the expansive area, including white-tailed deer, coyotes, the rare bobcat, beavers, and river otters. Also found here are red and gray fox, mink, long-tailed weasel, southern bog lemming, eight species of bats, raccoon, muskrat, various squirrels, chipmunks, voles, and mice.

There are about 144 bird species, including the pine warbler and other songbirds. The Pine Barrens is an important migrating and wintering location for birds, and it provides a nesting, breeding, feeding, and resting area for waterfowl, such as ducks and geese. It is also home to raptors, such as the bald eagle, red-shouldered hawk, and osprey.

The Pine Barrens is the global stronghold for the Pine Barrens treefrog (Hyla andersonii), and other amphibians such as the carpenter frog (Rana virgatipes), green frog (Hyla cinerea), and the southern leopard frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus).

Reptiles of the Pine Barrens include the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus), the only venomous species in the Pinelands. The most common snake of the Pinelands is the northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon). Eastern hognose (Heterodon platirhinos), also known as the puff adder because it often spreads its neck, cobra-like, when alarmed, is found here.

Native fish include the banded, blackbanded and mud sunfish (Enneacanthus obesus, E. chaetodon, Acantharchus pomotis), pirate perch (Aphredoderus sayanus), swamp darter (Etheostoma fusiforme), and yellow bullhead (Ameiurus natalis).

Fish species found in the Pine Barrens and elsewhere in New Jersey are American eel (Anguilla rostrata), bluespotted sunfish (Enneacanthus gloriosus), eastern mudminnow (Umbra pygmaea), redfin and chain pickerel (Esox americanus, E. niger), among others.

Environmental Threats

Wildfire is historically the dominant disturbance in the Pine Barrens. The pitch pine and many understory plants have become adapted to resprout following naturally occurring wildfires, and the suppression or acceleration of this dynamic process is one of the most serious threats to the Pine Barrens. A conservation dialogue is just beginning among conservation organizations, aimed at updating government agency policy to include prescribed fires set during the growing season that closely mimic a natural-disturbance regime.

Over the past century, human activities have continued to threaten Pinelands habitats. Land use has significantly altered the fire regime relative to pre-settlement conditions. Some other anthropogenic disturbances in the region include habitat fragmentation; cutting forests for lumber, fuelwood, and charcoal; mining for iron ore and sand; impoundment of water; real estate development; and agriculture.

Despite pressures caused by these activities, the poor soils fortunately have limited the extent of agricultural development and urban sprawl in the NJPB. Therefore, it remains one of the best-conserved areas in the eastern United States, and serves as an unparalleled recreational and scientific resource.

Rising temperatures due to climate change threaten forest composition as species will migrate northward and upward, so that current oak and hickory forests will recede and possibly be replaced with oak, pine, and loblolly pine forests here. Also, rising temperatures and changes in precipitation could increase the risk of forest fires by 10–20 percent.

Bibliography

Forman, R. Pine Barrens: Ecosystem and Landscape. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998.

McPhee, J. The Pine Barrens. New York: Farrar-Straus-Giroux, 1981.

Mitchell, Alison. "The State We're In: Pine Barrens Natural Landscape Will Rebound from Wharton Wildfire." Central New Jersey, 9 July 2022, centraljersey.com/2022/07/09/the-state-were-in-pine-barrens-natural-landscape-will-rebound-from-wharton-wildfire/. Accessed 30 Aug. 2022.

The Nature Conservancy. “Climate Change Impacts in New Jersey.” http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/downloads/pinelandsalliance‗55.pdf.