Austin’s Woods - Forested Wetlands
(Photo by David Rosen)
The coastal bottomland hardwood forests of the upper
Texas Coast adjacent to the Brazos, Colorado, and San Bernard Rivers,
known as Austin’s Woods (formerly known as Columbia Bottomlands)
comprised an estimated 700,000 acres at the beginning of the last century.
This area has been reduced to about 175,000 acres, and the remaining
tracts are continuously lost, or degraded through development, overgrazing,
human disturbance, and invasive plant species. Surveys in representative
tracts of Austin’s Woods have yielded 237 species of birds, and
radar data shows hundreds of thousands of transient individuals can
occur in these forests during migration. The recognition of the importance
of coastal bottomland hardwood forests along the Gulf of Mexico as stopover
and breeding habitat for Nearctic-Neotropical migratory birds has emphasized
the need for a deeper understanding of the ecological functioning and
factors regulating biodiversity of these forests.
Water Hickory
(Photo by David Rosen)
Research by staff at the Clear Lake Ecological services
field office, with support from Texas Nature Conservancy and Botanical
Research Center, is currently focused on quantitative study of Austin’s
Woods forest plant community composition and dynamics. The purpose of
this study is to produce quantitative data to facilitate plant community
classification and attributes, species composition tables, floristics,
and species diversity indices of and old growth Austin’s Woods
forest. This study is critically important to current forest bird research,
and will fill data gaps in restoration, management, and conservation
efforts of the Austin’s Woods ecosystem.
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