basal area (BA), and volume would increase while stand density and plant species richness and

diversity would decrease through the mid-age. We expected these parameters to reach a

threshold or steady-state during the mature phase when the understory reinitiation stage of

succession has begun. Quantifieation of this ecological traj ectory would help establish

monitoring thresholds in terms of stand structure and plant species composition for restoration

proj ects.

 Materials and Methods

Study Sites

 Three study sites were established along a wet pine flats located within three kilometers of

Florida' s Gulf Coast. They were Topsail Hill State Park, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge,

and Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area. They were found between the cities of

Pensacola and Tampa Bay (Figure 2-1), a narrow zone that makes up the maj ority of the Natural

Resource Conservation Service's Eastern Gulf Coast Flatwoods ecoregion (MLRA 152A) and

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association' s Panhandle Coast unit of the Louisianan

reserve (National Estuary and River Reserve System). Both of these federal designations make

this zone unique from an ecological as well as hydrological perspective. Within the Eastern Gulf

Coast Flatwoods zone is the Gulf Coast Flatwoods (75I) subecoregion of Florida (Figure 2-1;

Griffith et al. 1994). Any environmental variations between these sites were minimized by

establishing very specifically defined spatial scales. This was accomplished by stratifying the

important segments of the whole system (e.g. Florida' s Gulf coastal flatwoods) down to the

smallest distinct scale as possible (e.g. wet pine flats within 3 kilometers of the coast) in order to

take meaningful measurements (Chertov et al. 1999; Frelich, 2002; Miidler et al. 2000). The first

120 years of longleaf pine succession has been included with wet pine flats situated within 3 km

of the Florida Gulf coast as the temporal and spatial scales in this study. These two scales were