CHAPTER IV: WILDLIFE HABITATS FOR MISSISSIPPI’S SGCN,
THREATS AND CONSERVATION ACTIONS^102cultivated land has decreased, due mainly in part to the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
initiated in the 1985 Farm Bill. Similarly the amount of pasturage has decreased to approximately 3.7
million acres. As agriculture lands go out of production, there has been steady increase in the acreage of
pine plantations. Surveys from 1994 indicated that more than four million acres in Mississippi were
maintained in pine plantations, of which nearly half were 15 years or younger.
2.1 Northeast Prairie/Cedar Glades
Value to SGCN - 61
Rank - 14th of 29 Inland Terrestrial Complexes
(Terrestrial, Wetland, Subterranean and Anthropogenic)DESCRIPTION
A portion of land historically supported native prairie
vegetation in the blackbelt prairie region, which extends
from the Tennessee border in an inverted arc through
Mississippi to eastern Alabama. Some prairies occurred
on nearly level, deep, somewhat poorly drained clay soils. Attractive to the first settlers entering the state,
these flat prairies, some of which were Indian old fields, were quickly converted to crop and pasture lands.
No examples of this prairie type are currently known. Another prairie type was found on mostly shallow
soils of gentle to moderately steep areas. The soils are derived from the underlying Selma chalk, a
calcareous stratum of the Cretaceous Period deposited over 65 million years ago. On such areas that were
farmed during early settlement, erosion became a serious problem, as soils eroded away to expose the
underlying grayish-white chalk layer along gullies and occasionally wide patches. These marginal
agricultural lands were subsequently abandoned and left as old fields or converted to pastures. In addition
to early abandonment of marginal lands, many subsistence farms were later discontinued for economic
reasons. Other lands associated with these operations were left fallow, pastured or planted with trees.
Prairie herbs and eastern red cedar shrubs were able to reestablish on the old fields. The clay soils are dark
brown, alkaline and relatively high in organic matter. Eastern red cedar shrublands or cedar-oak
woodlands often surround patches of prairies. The prairies of these shallow, eroded soils support a
moderate to low density of grasses. Little bluestem, the dominant grass and other graminoids (grasses and
sedges), including Cherokee sedge, yellow Indian grass, Florida paspalum and dropseed, produce most of
the vegetative cover. However, many forbs, including a large number of rare species, add to their
diversity. Prairie forbs include the prairie goldenrod, healalldowny pagoda plant, diamondflower, white
and purple prairie clovers, purple and yellow prairie coneflowers, rosin weeds, gayfeathers, false foxglove
and a variety of asters.
Eastern red cedar trees in a mosaic of prairie grasses and forbs form cedar thickets or glades on many