Brewer's blackbird 



(West) 

 Indigo bunting (East) 

 Rufous-sided towhee 

 American goldfinch 



Blue racer 



Smooth green snake 



Milk snake 



Black-headed grosbeak 



(West) 

 Chipping sparrow 

 Field sparrow (East) 

 Song sparrow 



Reptiles 



Brown snake 

 Garter snake 

 Ribbon snake 



Southeastern mixed biocies 



A number of animal species have their centers of 

 distribution in the south Atlantic and Gulf states and 

 are associated with the southeastern pine forest, the 

 magnolia-oak forest, or with serai stages. There is, 

 doubtless, more than one community involved, but 

 until more detailed analysis can be made the species 

 may conveniently be listed together. Common terres- 

 trial vertebrates of the southeastern mixed biocies 

 are: 



Mammals 



Southeastern shrew 

 Florida least shrew 

 Eastern spotted 



skunk 

 Florida skunk 

 Southeastern pocket 



gopher 

 Eastern harvest mouse 

 Oldfield mouse 

 Cotton mouse 



Golden mouse 

 Florida mouse 

 Pine mouse 

 Hispid cotton rat 

 Marsh rice rat 

 Eastern wood rat 

 Round-tailed muskrat 

 Marsh rabbit 

 Swamp rabbit 



Birds 



Black vulture 



Swallow-tailed kite 

 (formerly) 



Mississippi kite 

 (formerly) 



Turkey 



Carolina parakeet 

 (formerly) 



Chuck-will's widow 



Red-cockaded wood- 

 pecker 



Ivory-billed woodpecker 



Scrub jay 



Fish crow 



Carolina chickadee 



Brown-headed nuthatch 



Carolina wren 



Mockingbird 

 Blue-gray gnatcatcher 

 White-eyed vireo 

 Prothonotary warbler 

 Swainson's warbler 

 Parula warbler 

 Yellow-throated warbler 

 Pine warbler 

 Prairie warbler 

 Hooded warbler 

 Orchard oriole 

 Boat-tailed grackle 

 Summer tanager 

 Cardinal 

 Painted bunting 

 Seaside sparrow 

 Bachman's sparrow 



Southern hog-nosed 



snake 

 Eastern fence lizard 

 Six-lined racerunner 



Brown skink 

 Chameleon 

 Spadefoot toad 



Reptiles and Amphibians 



Rough green snake Corn snake 



Chicken snake Kingsnake 



In addition to these species, many of those listed 

 for the deciduous forest and forest-edge are also 

 common, but frequently represented here by different 

 subspecies than occur in the North. The serai rela- 

 tions of many of the mammals (J.C. Moore 1946, 

 Pournelle 1950), birds (Nelson 1952), as well as cer- 

 tain insects (Rogers 1933, Friauf 1953) have been 

 worked out for various areas of northern Florida. 



Several of these species of mammals, birds, rep- 

 tiles, and amphibians have dispersed from the South- 

 east far into the deciduous forest and forest-edge 

 communities. Their distributional ranges, in many 

 cases, extend westward into Texas and southward 

 into Mexico. The closest related forms of some of 

 the more restricted species also lie to the West and 

 South, for instance the scrub jay. The evidence is 

 inferential that this biociation and the corresponding 

 plant associations did not originally belong to the 

 deciduous forest biome. It seems more likely, rather, 

 that they belonged to the sclerophyllous woodland 

 and pine forests, derived from the Madro-tertiary, 

 and to the Neotropical-tertiary floras. During the 

 Pliocene or earlier, Madro-tertiary biota may have 

 been continuous around the north side of the Gulf of 

 Alexico (Pitelka 1951a), but later separated into 

 eastern and western portions by the development of 

 grassland through Texas to the Gulf of Mexico. 



The terrestrial fauna indigenous to the southern 

 tip of Florida is predominantly deciduous forest-edge 

 species ; species of the southeastern mixed biocies 

 are represented, and there has also been some inva- 

 sion of tropical species. Among birds, the white- 

 crowned pigeon, zenaida dove, smooth-billed ani, 

 gray kingbird, black-whiskered vireo, as well as races 

 of nighthawk and yellow warbler, are recent new- 

 comers from the West Indies (Robertson 1955). 

 There is also a rich and varied aquatic avifauna that 

 is for the most part tropical in origin. The manatee 

 and the alligator formerly extended from Florida 

 around the north side of the Gulf of Mexico; the 

 crocodile was limited to southern Florida. 



European deciduous forest biociation 



Dominants of the plant associations in Europe 

 are different species of the same genera that occur in 

 North America, particularly beeches, maples, oaks, 

 hornbeams, and basswood. Many mammals and birds 

 of the European deciduous forest and serai stages also 

 belong to the same genera as North American species. 

 The similarity in genera may be traced back to the 



298 Geographic distribution of communities 



