Characteristics of Vegetation, Woody Debris, and Soil of a Forested Wetland Along the

Floodplain of the Mississippi River

Brannon Wittenberg
Wetland Ecology BNR 317
Introduction
The floodplain is a vital part to sustaining carbon availability to river systems, hydrologic
cycling, wildlife habitat, and connecting the riverine habitat to everything around it. (Romano,
2010) The current status of the Mississippi floodplain is mainly attributed to geomorphic
development in to support transportation, flood control, and water supply. (Romano, 2010) The
Mississippi River is a vital agricultural trade route. (Sparks, 2010) In 2000, 83 million tons of
freight was transported through the Mississippi River system. (Anfinson 2003) The amount of
traffic on the Mississippi River requires water level control. Between the mouth of the Missouri
and Ohio rivers 82% of the original floodplain of 268,000 ha has been leveed. (Delaney & Craig,
1997)
The river floodplain continues to respond to human development and it is important to
study these floodplain ecosystems because of their ecological functions. The overall goal of this
study was to characterize the vegetation, woody debris, and soil of a floodplain forested wetland
adjacent to the Mississippi River. The specific objectives included the following: (1) to
determine the overall mean stem density, basal area, coarse woody debris quantity and volume,
fine woody debris quantity and volume, soil moisture, bulk density, and soil organic matter of the
wetland; (2) to investigate how these parameters varied based on distance from the river; and (3)
to investigate correlations among the variables measured.
Methods

Site description
The site is located at the floodplain of the Mississippi River at the confluence of Piasa
Creek and the Mississippi River. There were an abundance of insects, amphibians (leopard frog
(scientific name), chorus frog (Sci name), and American toads(sci name), and waterfowl. There
was evidence of beaver (Sci name) activity as many of the trees close to the banks of the river
were chewed through. The area was relatively flat with depressions of standing water and small
micro topography of debris and soil. The soil series was classified as Darwin (Fluvaquentic
Vertic Endoaquolls), clayey alluvium soil with shrink swell properties.
Data Collection
Diameter at breast height (DBH), coarse woody debris (CWD), and fine woody debris
(FWD) was measured across three different transects as displayed in Fig.1 along with the
collection of a soil core from the center of each plot. Five 10m by 10m square plots were made
across the three transects. The first plot started ten meters from the river, perpendicular (North)
of Mississippi River, and then four more plots were established every 50 meters apart until
approximately 210 m from the river. The length of the woody debris was measured along with its
diameter at its midpoint. CWD was classified as any woody debris greater than 10cm at its
midpoint. FWD was classified as any woody debris between 1 and 10cm at its midpoint. DBH
was measured for every living tree in the plot by placing a circumference measuring tape around
each tree at a height of1.37 m. Soil moisture content was measured by heating the soil core in an
oven at 105 C and measuring the difference in weight before and after heating the soil core.
Soil organic matter or loss on ignition (LOI) is measured by putting the oven dried soil in a
furnace at 450 C and measuring the difference in weight before and after the furnace.

Formulas

Bulk density=air dried mass core sample

the mass of soil dried at 105 Cmass of t the container

volume of the core sample holder

Soil moisture content % =

mass of container plus oven dried soil

mass of container with air dried soil mass of empty container

*100.

Loss on ignition % = mass of soil dried

Basal area=

PiDB H
40,000

mass of soil ignited

mass of soil dried mass of crucible

*100.

WHAT ABOUT formulas for Stand Density, CWD, and FWD??

Results
Across all three transects SD had large variation. Throughout the first 160m had
relatively small increases and decreases, but from 160m to 210m SD increased by 3,800. Basal
area (BA) had a gradual decline as the distance from the river increased but then spikes at 160m
and returns back to its gradual decline.
Soil moisture content (SMC) increased slightly over 10% at a steady rate until 160m
where SMC decreases just over 1%. Bulk density (BD) has a steady decrease and plateaued at
110m to 160m then continued its decreasing trend till 210m. Loss on ignition (LOI) steadily
increased until 160m from the river where it almost doubles in percentage.
3

The amount of coarse woody debris (CWD) decreased at a linear rate until 110m from the
river then increases at a linear rate until 210m where it forming a V-shape in Figure 7. The
volume of CWD decreased with distance to the river until 110m from the river where a steep
linear increase changes from 302 to 3,049 m3/ha. Like stem density, the number of fine woody
debris (FWD) follows the same shape (Figures 2 and 10). The number of FWD increases at 60m
then at 110m decreases at dramatic rates, and then exponentially increases at 210m from the
river. FWD volume is variable as it increases at 60m then drastically decreases at 110m then
slightly increases at 160m and drastically increases at 210m.
Discussion
The large increase of SD at 210m (Shown in Fig.2) from the river may possibly be
caused from anthropogenic and ecological impacts. Damming is an effective way of controlling
upstream flooding, but has the potential to increase or decrease the severity and frequency of
flooding downstream. The increase of water surface elevations in the growing season could mean
the loss of flood intolerant species and poor regeneration of understory species in the floodplain
(Yin et al. 2009). The flood control effectiveness of the lock and dam structures could be the
reason why there is a much higher amount of stems at the plots furthest from the river. Beavers
can also have a detrimental effect on tree populations throughout the banks on which they live
and the stems 210m away from the river may be past the beavers home range or too close to the
Great River Road (a 4 lane highway adjacent to the wetland). Further investigation could include
a study on water levels or beaver home range effect on the number of stems across distance from
the river. For future studies identifying tree species of each stem measured could bring further
analysis to flood tolerance of stems.

There are a multitude of factors that could cause a negative correlation between BD and
SMC, but one cause could be that BD can have direct effect on the amount of pore space in soil.
Bulk density is measures the ratio of dried soil to the volume of the container which supplies
information of soil structure and permeability of the soil. The lower BD values are generally
means the soil is more permeable (Wilke B-M. 2005). Lower BD values means there is more
pore space available in the soil and allows for more water storage. This could explain why the
values on Fig. 5 increase at sites where BD increases in Fig.6 (except for 210m) or why there is
an inverse pattern on fig. 12.
There are some ecological reasons why LOI increases with the distance away from the
river. The values CWD and FWD (Figures 8, 9, 10, and 11) are relatively high at 210m from the
river. Detritus materials provide shelter and nutrients to all sorts of microbes and insects, which
in turn contributes to the litter layer of topsoil. Outwash from continual flooding would push
woody debris far away from the river banks.
Coarse woody debris has a large impact on floodplain systems as they pond water and
store sediments. (Gurnell et al. 1995) Morphological, sedimentological, and biological
characteristics are indicative of a history of CWD storage (Swanson et al., 1976). The data
collected does not strongly support CWD impacting water levels or sedimentation because these
processes were not studied directly. If a study were done more focused on wetland water levels
being impacted by CWD, the dynamics of CWD impact of sediment and water trapping could be
more thoroughly investigated.

Table 1. Means, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, and cv (coefficient of

variation) for the measured vegetation, woody debris, and soil properties.

Stem
Densit
y
(trees/
ha)

Basal
Area
(m2/h
a)

SMC
(%)

BD(%)

Me
an

1773

58.75

26.89

St
Dev

1859

46.15

Min

300

Max

CV

LOI(%)

CWD

0.81

4.36

333

1299

11940

305

4.97

0.20

1.83

313

2259

10740

162

0.84

18.10

0.56

2.44

900

46

6000

184.25

38.01

1.23

7.88

1100

7852

25900

483

1.04838
41

0.7855
19

0.1846
97

0.2499

0.41991
5

0.93960478

0.8994990
5

0.5298
76

1.739261

FWD
(n/ha)

FWD
(Vol /
Ha)

CWD
(n/ha)

SMC
(%)

0.087
8
0.020
0

(vol/ha) FWD

FWD (n/ha)

CWD (n/ha)

LOI(%)

BD (g/cm3)

SMC (%)

BA (m2/ha)

1.000
0

(vol/ha) CWD

St
Density
(trs/ha)
BA
(m2/ha)

(trees/ha) St Density

Table 2. ANOVA table showing the correlation between variables.

1.000
0
0.101
8

1.00
00
6

BD
(g/cm3)
LOI(%)

0.236
4
0.454
8

0.211
0

CWD
(n/ha)

0.130
4

0.341
7
0.608
6

CWD
(vol/ha)

0.374
6

0.338
3

FWD
(n/ha)

0.856
8

0.018
2

FWD
(vol/ha)

0.740
1

0.118
8

0.67
83
0.81
63
0.08
71
0.31
42
0.19
77
0.36
56

1.00
00
0.70
38
0.09
99
0.24
57
0.82
40
0.53
87

1.00
00
0.15
40
0.11
05

1.00
00
0.61
86

1.00
00

0.72
13

0.66
22

1.00
00

0.85
24

0.64
52

0.76
82

1.00
00

T1

T2 T3

Fig. 1 Google Earth image of the forested floodplain wetland sampled for the final project. The
three red lines indicate the 3 transects established within the site.

Fig.2 Mean stem density (1 standard error) throughout all three transects at different
distances from the river.
8

Fig. 3 Basal area throughout all three transects at different distances from the river.

Fig.4 SMC% throughout all three transects at different distances from the river.

Fig. 5 BD% throughout all three transects at different distances from the river.

Fig. 6 LOI% throughout all three transects at different distances from the river.

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Fig. 7 CWD n/ha throughout all three transects at different distances from the river.

Fig 8. CWD vol/ha throughout all three transects at different distances from the river.

11

Fig.9 FWD n/ha throughout all three transects at different distances from the river.

Fig. 10 FWD vol/ha throughout all three transects at different distances from the river.

12

1.40
1.20
1.00

f(x) = - 0.03x + 1.55

R = 0.46

0.80
BD (g/cm3)

0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
15.00

20.00

25.00

30.00

35.00

40.00

SMC (%)

Fig. 11 BD correlated to SMC

35.00
30.00
25.00

f(x) = 9.74 ln(x) + 11.43

R = 0.78

20.00
SMC (%)

15.00
10.00
5.00
0.00
2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

8.00

9.00

LOI (%)

Fig.12 SMC correlated to LOI

13

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