A beech-maple forest is a climax

Climax community

In ecology, a climax community, or climatic climax community, is a biological community of plants and animals which, through the process of ecological succession — the development of vegetation in an area over time — has reached a steady state. This equilibrium occurs because the climax community...

 mesic

Mesic habitat

In ecology, a mesic habitat is a type of habitat with a moderate or well-balanced supply of moisture, e.g., a mesic forest, a temperate hardwood forest, or dry-mesic prairie. Compared to a dry habitat, a mesic habitat is moister....

 closed canopy hardwood forest. It is primarily composed of American Beech

American Beech

Fagus grandifolia, also known as American Beech or North american beech, is a species of beech native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia west to southern Ontario in southeastern Canada, west to Wisconsin and south to eastern Texas and northern Florida in the United States. Trees in the...

 and Sugar Maple

Sugar Maple

Acer saccharum is a species of maple native to the hardwood forests of northeastern North America, from Nova Scotia west to southern Ontario, and south to Georgia and Texas...

 trees which co-dominate the forest and which are the pinnacle of plant succession in their range. A form of this forest was the most common forest type in the Northeastern United States

Northeastern United States

The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...

 when it was settled and remains widespread but scattered today.

Description

The canopy is dominated by American beech and Sugar maple trees, providing little light to the understory. The reduced light provides poor conditions for shrubs, with the exceptions of Witch-hazel

Witch-hazel

Witch-hazel is a genus of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, with three species in North America , and one each in Japan and China...

 and alderleaf viburnum

Viburnum lantanoides

Viburnum lantanoides is a perennial shrub of the family Adoxaceae growing 2–4 meters high with pendulous branches that take root where they touch the ground...

 shrubs. The ground cover includes herbs and spring ephemerals, flowers which are able to bloom before the canopy fills in. Seedlings of beech and maple trees are shade-tolerant, allowing them to grow in low light conditions for several years. These seedling are waiting for an opening in the canopy, which grow rapidly when an opening is made by the death of a mature tree.
Beech-maple forests are often found on flat or rolling terrain, in a variety of moist to well-drained soils with high levels of organic matter. They thrive in glacial till from the Wisconsin glaciation. Typically, in sandy soils, the maple is more common while in soils that have more clay in them, the beech is more dominant. There must be a fairly high level of precipitation.

These forests are the result of plant succession, a long progression of different plant species over centuries. One possible sere

Seral community

A seral community is an intermediate stage found in ecological succession in an ecosystem advancing towards its climax community. In many cases more than one seral stage evolves until climax conditions are attained...

 is from bare ground, it would start with weeds, then shrubs, weedy trees (e.g.: mulberry

Mulberry

Morus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae. The 10–16 species of deciduous trees it contains are commonly known as Mulberries....

), then coniferous trees (e.g.: Juniper

Juniper

Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the...

) and additional types such as ash lead to a mixed mesophytic

Mesophyte

Mesophytes are terrestrial plants which are adapted to neither a particularly dry nor particularly wet environment. An example of a mesophytic habitat would be a rural temperate meadow, which might contain Goldenrod, Clover, Oxeye Daisy, and Rosa multiflora.Mesophytes make up the largest ecological...

 forest. Eventually, a Oak-hickory forest

Oak-hickory forest

The oak-hickory forest is a general type of North American forest ecosystem with a range extending from southern New England and New York, west to Iowa, and south to Northern Georgia. Smaller, isolated Oak-Hickory communities can also be found as far west as North Dakota, south to Florida and...

 develops. If the conditions allow, the final climax community for several different seres is the beech-maple community. Even in a climax community dominated by two types of trees, there can be many different species of trees on the edges of the forest, in windthrow gaps or in microclimates.

Distribution

The range of the beech-maple forest type extends from the Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 coast west to Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

 and from southern Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 south to Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 and Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

. It is widespread in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 and was an important component of the original vegetation of northeastern Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

. Instances of a beech-maple forest can be found at altitudes of 320 feet (97.5 m) to 3900 feet (1,188.7 m).

External links

• Beech Maple Forest