Subfossil leaves reveal a new upland hardwood component of the pre-European Piedmont landscape,Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

ABSTRACT: Widespread deforestation, agriculture, and construction of milldams by European settlers greatly influenced valley-bottom stream morphology and riparian vegetation in the northeastern USA. The former broad, tussock-sedge wetlands with small, anastomosing channels were converted into today's incised, meandering streams with unstable banks that support mostly weedy, invasive vegetation. Vast accumulations of fine-grained "legacy" sediments that blanket the regional valley-bottom Piedmont landscape now are being reworked from stream banks, significantly impairing the ecological health of downstream water bodies, most notably the Chesapeake Bay. However, potential restoration is impaired by lack of direct knowledge of the pre-settlement riparian and upslope floral ecosystems. We studied the su

SUBMITTER: Elliott SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3827356 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature