Hammock Park

On our trip at Hammock Park we did a lot of walking on the many different trails. Hardwood hammocks are a dense growth of broad-leaved trees (hardwoods) on a slightly elevated area. Some non-hardwoods can still be there.The difference between deciduous and evergreen is that evergreen keeps their leaves while deciduous drops all their leaves. Not all hardwoods are deciduous. Palms and pines are evergreens while maples are deciduous. Hardwood hammocks always have 2 main layers at the minimum. The canopy is always present and often diverse and either the understory or shrub layer is also always present. The ground cover is often absent or sparse. Hardwood hammocks are characterized by hydrology and fire. They rarely flood or burn and the soil is very rich in nutrients. The hardwood hammocks contain high species diversity but limited new species because of limited space and light. The lack of light is a very big adaption that many organisms have to deal with. The ways they can deal with low light is chemical warfare, broader leaves, viny plants, and plants holding onto their leaves longer than other plants. The way for new trees to spring out with the absence of fire is from tree fall that creates gaps allowing succession to occur. Hardwood hammocks can be classified as xerix, mesic, or hydric. Xeric are most likely to burn, are dry, have good drainage, lower in nutrients, and higher in elevation. Mesic has lots of vegetation, is moist, has organic (humus) material, has evergreens, pines, cabbage palms, and is more diverse and denser. Hydric is wet and has standing water for a period of time. There is low infiltration and high saturation.  Hammocks produces large amounts of oxygen. Threats to the ecosystem are the air potato which is an invasive species, rosary peas that can kill you, development, fire, and reduced precipitation.