| Habitat Overview |
The Coastal Plain of North Carolina contains an abundance of peatland habitats, associated with the flat, water-rich terrain in general and with Carolina Bays and other depressions in particular. In all these cases, these habitats are characterized with constantly saturated, highly acidic, nutrient poor, and often anoxic soils. Such sites typically have mats of sphagnum mosses, which along with other vegetation, do not decompose in these environments and form instead deep deposits of peat.
Most such sites in the North Carolina Coastal Plain support pocosin shrubs or peatland trees such as Pond Pines, Atlantic White Cedars, or hardwood Bays. The herbaceous peatlands treated here, however, lack a canopy. Some are associated with particularly deep deposits of peat -- located in the centers of large peat domes -- where trees cannot establish. More commonly, they occur as narrow ecotones located between peatlands dominated by woody species and fire-maintained savannas, flatwoods, and sandridges. In these cases, it is the frequency of fires spilling over from the adjoining habitats that keeps the habitats open.
Consequently, the Defining Species must be adapted not only to the peatland soils but also a high frequency of burns. Plant species in these habitats normally survive as well-protected underground rhizomes or seeds in the seed bank. Animals such as the Sundew Cutworm Moth probably do not survive through a fire in place but instead rely on recolonization from unburned patches of their habitat to maintain their presence within the area.
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