Managing biodiversity using long-term regional data in the southeastern United States

The United States proactively manages federally owned lands with an objective to mitigate/limit the impacts of land-use activities on the long-term stability of the environment. For example, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) manages around 25 million acres of national military land. Impacts of military land use can include soil erosion, loss of endangered species, and degradation of habitats (Goran et al., 2002). Management involves planning and assessment that takes into consideration the types of environment to be managed and how they have changed over time, in order to maintain lands for training and operations. Fort Benning, founded in 1920, is a military base in Georgia and Alabama in the southeastern United States. It covers an area of 1052 km2 and is situated near the fall line of the Coastal Plain where soils consist of clay beds and sandy alluvial deposits (Fenneman, 1938). The pre-European (before ca. AD 1825) forest was primarily a pine-blackjack oak forest (Black et al., 2002). This article summarizes some recent research on long-term environmental changes and how it is being used to manage current ecological problems.