Physical Variables And Community Structure Of The White Rocks Cliff System, Cumberland Gap National Historic Park

Cliff-face ecology is the study of the patterns and processes which control cliff-face ecosystems (Larson et al. 2000). It is important to study cliff systems due to their cultural and biological significance. Cliff systems have been employed for shelter and concealment throughout humanities history. Presently, cliff systems are used primarily for recreation, which has had an increasingly negative effect on the sensitive vegetation which occurs on these systems. Cliff systems provide habitat for many threatened, rare, and arctic and boreal disjunct species which are restricted to cliff systems as a result of moderated environmental and physical conditions not found in traditional horizontal environments. A vegetative survey of the White Rocks cliff system, located in the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, was conducted during the summer and fall of 2005, and May, 2006. Vascular plants, mosses, and lichens were surveyed on the cliff top, cliff face, and talus using lm2 plots spaced evenly along 12 randomly located vertical transects.