TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii 



LIST OF TABLES vii 



LIST OF FIGURES x 



ABSTRACT xil 



INTRODUCTION 1 



Plant Community Organization 2 



Bottomland Forest Community Organization 3 



Zonation of Bottomland Forests 5 



Purpose and Objectives 7 



METHODS 8 



Study Area 8 



Site Selection 10 



Determining Hydrologic Zone Elevations 11 



Site Preparation and Data Collection 14 



Analyzing Vegetation Data 16 



Calculating Species FTI Numbers 17 



RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 20 



Flood Analysis of Study Sites 20 



Vegetation Data 22 



Weighted Averaging 36 



Statistical Analysis of the Vegetation Data 37 



Cluster Analyses 38 



Discriminant Function Analysis 47 



Regional Variation in Species FTI Numbers 56 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 59 



APPENDIX A SITE DESCRIPTIONS AND MAP LOCATIONS 62 



APPENDIX B GUIDE FOR COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR ANALYZING 



HYDROLOGIC DATA 90 



APPENDIX C HYDROGRAPH FOR STEELE BAYOU (SITE 3) 97 



