INTRODUCTION


The ecological community concept as used in this booklet is based on the
awareness that a soil type commonly supports a specific vegetative community,
which in turn provides the habitat needed by specific wildlife species.

These vegetative communities form recognizable units in the landscape, most
of which are apparent to the casual observer after only a little training.
Even with no botanical training, an observer can soon distinguish between pine
flatwoods and pine-turkey oak sandhills; between hardwood hammocks and cypress
swamps; and between mangrove swamps and salt marsh. Once the community is
recognized, information can be found concerning the general characteristics of
the soil in which it occurs and the types of plants and animals that commonly
occur there.

In the mid-1970's, Soil Conservation Service plant and soil scientists began
to try to draw all this information together for the communities most often
encountered by SCS personnel in their work. Field studies were made, in
addition to consulting many reference works. Twenty-six different communities
were identified, although this is by no means a complete listing of
communities occurring in Florida. Strictly aquatic communities (such as
lakes, rivers and bays) were not included, and the 26 picked could obviously
be broken down more--or lumped together--depending on which characteristics
are of most interest. These 26 were picked based on how knowledge about them
would be useful in SCS field work, which constantly involves environmental
evaluations.

The information was sent to SCS field office Technical Guides as a "working
draft" in 1978. Since that time, field checks and refinements have been made
and this booklet presents the up-dated information. This booklet has been
developed primarily as a supplement to SCS Technical Guides for Florida.

The communities described are essentially the climax types that occur in
nature where man's influence has not greatly altered them. In other words,
they have evolved through natural plant succession over long periods of time.
Under this concept, even a cropfield would be expected to revert to a specific
type of climax community if man's influence were removed. For instance, a
Norfolk soil in northwest Florida that now supports a corn field was
originally a Mixed Hardwood-Pine forest community and would return to that
community within 50 to 75 years if the field were to be abandoned. By
contrast, a Hontoon muck in south Florida that has been drained and is being
used to produce vegetables would revert to a freshwater marsh within only a
few years if the drainage were stopped.

The more we recognize the characteristics and values of our natural ecological
communities, the wiser the decisions we can make regarding the use and care
of these resources. It is hoped that the information in this booklet will
help to lead to these wise decisions.