Hammock (ecology)

Hammock is a term used in the southeastern United States for stands of trees, usually hardwood, that form an ecological island in a contrasting ecosystem.

The term hammock is also applied to stands of hardwood trees growing on slopes between wetlands and drier uplands supporting a mixed or coniferous forest.

[5] The trees forming the canopy of the southernmost tropical hardwood hammocks in Florida are almost all West Indian species.

The southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) is the only temperate hardwood species to appear regularly in such hammocks.

[7][8][9][10] Temperate hardwood hammocks are narrow bands of broadleaf forest that occur on the coastal plain of the southeastern United States.

Some of those trees are less frequent or absent in southern Florida (from about Lake Okeechobee south), where tropical species, such as gumbo limbo and satinleaf, may be found.

The soil in mesic hammocks is well-drained and rarely flooded, but remains moist due to the shade of the canopy, and the heavy leaf litter that usually occurs in them.

They occur in central and southern Florida in prairies and floodplains, on river levees, and on slopes between dry uplands and wetlands.

They consist of thick stands of evergreen oaks, and are distinct from their surrounding habitats, which are typically woodlands dominated by longleaf pine.