Many southern species reach their northern range limits here. The climate is humid and subtropical, with significant variation in winter lows over the length of this region although the north is colder, the low elevations and abundance of water tends to make this region have some of the mildest winter temperatures of any areas extending so far north and inland.Īt the time of European settlement, this region was mostly covered in bottomland forests, with bottomland swamps on the most frequently-flooded sites. The water table is consistently high, and many areas flood seasonally. Soils are all formed on relatively recent alluvial deposits, and tend to be high in nutrients, varying in texture from moderately well-drained to very poorly-drained, with the best-drained soils tending to occur closest to the rivers or more recently-abandonded channels. Streams are uncommon and tend to be winding and low-gradient. This region consists of broad, nearly level floodplains, low terraces, islands, and abandoned channels of the Mississippi river and its tributaries, with numerous features characteristic of a broad floodplain of a major river, including oxbow lakes, shallow ponds, back swamps, natural levies, sloughs, and point bars. This previously highly biodiverse area has been aggressively utilized for agriculture through clearing of most of the bottomland forests and extensive drainage and channelization. It covers much of the eastern portions of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain but does not extend into its southernmost portions. ↑About the Northern Holocene Meander BeltsThe Northern Holocene Meander Belts are a section of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain extending from the extreme southern tip of Illinois, through Kentucky and Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas, into Mississippi and northern Louisiana.
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