Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Historical development of the Cypress/Tupelo swamp at Horseshoe Lake, Alexander County, Illinois, USA

  • Published:
Wetlands Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Horseshoe Lake, Alexander County, Illinois, is a shallow floodplain lake that lies at the northern range boundary of Taxodium distichum var. distichum (L.) L.C. Rich (bald cypress) in the Mississippi River Valley. About 35% of the lake surface is occupied by a flooded forest of Taxodium distichum and Nyssa aquatica L. (water tupelo). Pollen in two sediment cores was examined to determine the time of arrival of the forest at the site. Taxodium and Nyssa pollen increased in sediment deposited in 1850. The Modern Analogue Technique (MAT) showed that samples dating from before the arrival of Taxodium were most similar to sites in a variety of locations with high Quercus (oak) and Carya (hickory) and low Pinus (pine) percentages without Taxodium. For sediment deposited after the increase in Taxodium, the most similar modern analogues came from Taxodium/Nyssa swamps in the lower Mississippi River Valley and Virginia. Ring analysis of extant trees suggested an increase in reproduction and growth after 1850. The MAT results were consistent with the hypothesis that the Taxodium/Nyssa forest first colonized the lake around 1850 when American farmers developed the upland loess soils of the watershed for agriculture. We suggest that agricultural development on the uplands surrounding the lake encouraged the growth of the Taxodium/Nyssa forest by increasing sedimentation rate and producing large shallow areas of seasonally flooded eroded material.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Literature Cited

  • Appleby, P. G. and F. Oldfield. 1978. The calculation of 210Pb dates assuming a constant rate of supply of unsupported 210Pb to the sediment. Catena 5: 1–8.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Basinger, M. A., J. S. Huston, R. J. Gates, and P. A. Robertson. 1997. Vascular flora of the Horseshoe Lake Conservation Area, Alexander County, Illinois. Castanea 62: 82–99.

    Google Scholar 

  • Birks, J. J. B. and H. H. Birks. 1980. Quaternary Palaeoecology. Edward Arnold, London, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bogner, W. C., W. P. Fitzpatrick, and D. S. Blakley. 1985. Sedimentation rates at Horseshoe Lake, Alexander County, Illinois. Illinois Department of Conservation, Carbondale, IL, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brandon, R. A., B. M. Burr, G. A. Feldhammer, R. J. Gates, and R. C. Heidinger. 1994. Potential effects of increased water levels on flora and fauna at Horseshoe Lake, Alexander County, Illinois. Illinois Department of Conservation, Carbondale, IL, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Broehl, W. P. 1984. John Deere’s Company: A History of Deere and Company and Its Times. Doubleday and Company, Inc., New York, NY, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, S. 1981. A comparison of the structure, productivity and transpiration of cypress ecosystems in Florida. Ecological Monographs 51: 403–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brugam, R. B. 1978. Pollen indicators of changes in land-use in Southern Connecticut. Quaternary Research 9: 349–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brugam, R. B. I., M. Giorgi, C. Sesvold, T. M. Johnson, and R. Almos. 1997. Holocene vegetation history in the Sylvania Wilderness Area of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. American Midland Naturalist 137: 62–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bryant, V. M. J. 1977. 16,000 year pollen record of vegetational change in central Texas. Palynology 1: 143–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunting, M. J. and R. Tipping. 2004. Complex hydoseral vegetation and ‘dryland’ pollen signals: a case study from northwest Scotland. Holocene 14: 53–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burns, R. M. and B. H. Honkala. 1990. Silvics of North America: 1. Conifers. Agriculture Handbook 654. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, DC, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calcote, R. 1998. Identifying forest stand types using pollen from forest hollows. Holocene 8: 423–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, A. M. 1977. The prairie-deciduous forest ecotone in the upper Middle West. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 67: 204–13.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt, P. A., H. R. Delcourt, and J. L. Davidson. 1983. Mapping and calibration of modern pollen-vegetation relationships in the southeastern United States. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 39: 1–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dennis, J. V. 1988. The Great Cypress Swamps. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duram, L. A., J. Bathgate, and C. Ray. 2004. A local example of land-use change: Southern Illinois — 1807, 1938, and 1993. The Professional Geographer 56: 127–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faegri, K. and J. Iverson. 1975. Textbook of Pollen Analysis. Hafner Press, New York, NY, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finkelstein, S. 2003. Identifying pollen grains of Typha latifolia, Typha angustifolia and Typha × glauca. Canadian Journal of Botany 81: 985–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flakne, R. 2003. The Holocene vegetation history of Isle Royale National Park, Michigan, U.S.A. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 33: 1144–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gavin, D. G., W. W. Oswald, E. Wahl, and J. W. Williams. 2003. A statistical approach to evaluating distance metrics and analog assignments for pollen records. Quaternary Research 60: 356–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geyh, M. A., U. Schotterer, and M. Grosjean. 1998. Temporal changes of the C-14 reservoir effect in lakes. Radiocarbon 40: 921–31.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Giese, L. A. 1988. Tree growth rates and vegetation of several hydrologically undisturbed and altered forested wetlands in Southern Illinois. M.S. Thesis. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimm, E. C. 1996. The North American Pollen Database. The Living Museum 58: 12–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guccione, M. J., R. B. Van Arsdale, and L. H. Hehr. 2000. Origin and age of the Manila high and associated Big Lake “sunklands” in the New Madrid seismic zone, northeastern Arkansas. Geological Society of America Bulletin 112: 579–985.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall, S. A. 1977. Holocene geology and paleoenvironmental history of the Hominy Creek Valley. p. 12–42. In D. O. Henry (ed.) Paleoenvironment of Hominy Creek Valley: The Prehistory and Laboratory of Archaeology. University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heiri, O., A. F. Lotter, and G. Lemcke. 2001. Loss on ignition as a method for estimating organic and carbonate content in sediments: reproducibility and comparability of results. Journal of Paleolimnology 25: 101–10.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Howard, R. P. 1972. Illinois: A History of the Prairie State. William Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huston, J. S. 1972. The vascular flora of Horseshoe Lake Alexander County, Illinois. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutchinson, G. E. 1957. Treatise on Limnology. Vol I.Geography, Physics and Chemistry. Wiley Interscience, New York, NY, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, S. T. and J. W. Williams. 2004. Modern analogs in Quaternary paleoecology: here today, gone yesterday, gone tomorrow? Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science 32: 495–537.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Janssen, C. R. 1966. Recent pollen spectra from the deciduous and coniferous-deciduous forests of northeastern Minnesota: a study in pollen dispersal. Ecology 47: 804–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kapp, R. O. 1969. How to Know Pollen and Spores. William C. Brown Company, Dubuque, IA, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kharkar, D. P., J. Thomson, H. K. Turekian, and W. O. Forster. 1976. Uranium and Thorium in decay series nuclides in plankton from the Caribbean. Limnology and Oceanography 21: 296–301.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krishnaswami, S., D. Lal, J. Martin, and M. Meybeck. 1971. Geochronology of lake sediments. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 11: 407–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leitner, L. A. and M. T. Jackson. 1981. Presettlement forests of the unglaciated portion of Southern Illinois. The American Midland Naturalist 105: 290–304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Loftus, T. T. 1994. Status and assessment of Taxodium distichum L. Rich and Nyssa aquatica L. in Horseshoe Lake, Alexander County, Illinois, Phase One — baseline study. Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lytle, D. E. and E. Wahl. 2005. Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions using the modern analogue technique: the effects of sample size and decision rules. The Holocene 15: 554–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McAndrews, J. H., A. A. Berti, and G. Norris. 1973. Key to the Quaternary pollen and spores of the Great Lakes Region. Royal Ontario Museum, Life Science Miscellaneous Publications: Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • Middleton, B. 2000. Hydrochory, seed banks and regeneration dynamics along the landscape boundaries of a forested wetland. Plant Ecology 146: 169–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Middleton, B. and K. L. McKee. 2004. Use of a latitudinal gradient in bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) production to examine physiological controls of biotic boundaries and potential responses to environmental change. Global Ecology and Biogeography 13: 247–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mirecki, J. E. 1996. Recognition of the 1811–1812 New Madrid earthquakes at Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee sediments using pollen data. Journal of Paleolimnology 15: 181–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, P. D., J. A. Webb, and M. E. Collinson. 1991. Pollen Analysis. Blackwell Scientific Ltd., Oxford, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers, R. S., G. P. Schafer, and D. W. Llewellyn. 1995. Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich.) Restoration in southeast Louisiana: the relative effects of herbivory, flooding, competition, and macronutrients. Wetlands 15: 141–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Overpeck, J. T., T. Webb, and I. C. Prentice. 1985. Quantitative interpretation of fossil pollen spectra: dissimilarity coefficients and the method of modern analogs. Quaternary Research 23: 87–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson, G. M. 1978. Pollen spectra from surface sediments of lakes and ponds in Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. The American Midland Naturalist 100: 333–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rich, F. J. and W. Spackman. 1979. Modern and ancient pollen sedimentation around tree islands in the Okefenokee Swamp. Palynology 3: 219–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shankman, D. and L. G. Drake. 1990. Channel migration and regeneration of Bald Cypress in western Tennessee. Physical Geography 11: 343–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Teed, R. 2000. A > 130,000-year-long pollen record from Pittsburg Basin, Illinois. Quaternary Research 54: 264–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Arsdale, R. B., D. W. Stahle, M. K. Cleaveland, and M. J. Guccione. 1998. Earthquake signals in tree-ring data from the New Madrid seismic zone and implications for paleoseismicity. Geology 26: 515–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voight, J. W. and R. H. Mohlenbrock. 1964. Plant communities of southern Illinois. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, IL, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb, T. III. 1974. A vegetational history from northern Wisconsin: evidence from modern and fossil pollen. The American Midland Naturalist 92: 12–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, D. R. 1972. Developmental and environmental history of the Dismal Swamp. Ecological Monographs 42: 301–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xiao, N., D. A. Bennett, B. Middleton, and K. Fessel. 2002. SISM: a multiscale model for cypress swamp regeneration. Geographical and Environmental Modelling 6: 99–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Southern Illinois University, 62026, Edwardsville, Illinois, USA

    Richard B. Brugam

  2. Biology Department, University of Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

    Michelle C. Crenshaw

  3. Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc., 5300 Wellington Branch Road, 20155, Gainesville, Virginia, USA

    Laura A. B. Giese

Authors
  1. Richard B. Brugam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michelle C. Crenshaw
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Laura A. B. Giese
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard B. Brugam.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Brugam, R.B., Crenshaw, M.C. & Giese, L.A.B. Historical development of the Cypress/Tupelo swamp at Horseshoe Lake, Alexander County, Illinois, USA. Wetlands 27, 305–318 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1672/0277-5212(2007)27[305:HDOTTS]2.0.CO;2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1672/0277-5212(2007)27[305:HDOTTS]2.0.CO;2

Key Words

Search

Navigation