ABSTRACT
Deepwater swamps, primarily baldcypress-water tupelo, pondcypress-swamp tupelo, or Atlantic white-cedar, are freshwater systems with standing water for most or all of the year. Probably the first classification of deepwater swamp forests was Shaler, who used both physical and vegetational characteristics to identify two types of forested wetlands: freshwater swamps and estuarine swamps. Other classification systems developed in the 1950s were based on vegetation, habitat, and the quantity, depth, and duration of water as diagnostic criteria. Deepwater swamps occur in a wide variety of geomorphic situations ranging from broad, flat floodplains to isolated basins. Soils of deepwater swamps generally have ample nutrients. Major flows of nutrients most frequently measured in these swamps include decomposition, wood accumulation, sedimentation, and return of nutrients from the forest canopy as litterfall. Fire is generally infrequent in natural deepwater forests of the southern United States because of the continuously moist conditions.
