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Aboveground Production In Southeastern Floodplain Forests: A Test Of The Subsidy-Stress Hypothesis, William Conner, J Patrick Megonigal, Steven Kroeger, Rebecca R. Sharitz

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It has been hypothesized that periodically flooded forests have higher rates of aboveground net primary production than upland forests and near-continuously flooded forests, but a competing hypothesis holds that the benefits of periodic inputs of nutrients and water may be diminished by stresses associated with anaerobic soils or drought. To test these hypotheses, we measured groundwater table depths and aboveground productivity in floodplain forests of South Carolina and Louisiana. We established paired plots on locally dry, intermediate, and wet topographic positions across three hydrologic transects in each state. These plots encompassed upland hardwood, bottomland hardwood, and cypress swamp forests. Measurements …