CHAPTER III: MISSISSIPPI’S ECOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK-ECOREGIONS OF MISSISSIPPI 63
Part 1. East Gulf Coastal Plain Ecoregion
The East Gulf Coastal Plain (EGCP) ecoregion includes portions of five states (Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana) and over 42 million acres. It stretches from southwest Georgia
across the Florida panhandle and west to southeastern Louisiana. The ecoregion has a diversity of
ecological systems, ranging from sandhills and rolling longleaf pine-dominated uplands to pine
flatwoods and savannas, seepage bogs and bottomland hardwood forests. The meager topographic and
soil diversity of the EGCP suggests an area of low biodiversity and endemism, yet the ecoregion is one
of the biologically richest in North America. Many species, particularly vascular plants, reptiles,
amphibians and fishes occur only in this ecoregion and many of those are even more narrowly limited
within the ecoregion.
This ecoregion is physically characterized by subtle topography, a warm to hot, humid maritime climate,
and soils derived primarily from unconsolidated sands, silts and clays transported to the ecoregion by the
weathering of the Appalachian Mountains. Other features include a high percentage of land area in
wetlands, a dominant role of frequent fire over the majority of the landscape, a diversity of river and
stream systems, limited but important karst areas, and significant large scale disturbance events such as
hurricanes.
This ecoregion experiences high species richness, species endemism and community diversity in
terrestrial, freshwater and aquatic systems. Part of the reason for this is that the ecoregion has never
been glaciated, and has been continuously occupied by plants and animals since the Cretaceous period,
giving ample time for the evolution of narrow endemic species.
East Gulf Coastal Plain(^) Counties