Mammals of Carolina Bays 33 



milder winters and cooler summers prevailed. These conditions allowed 

 northern species to extend farther south and subtropical species farther 

 north than they do today. This hypothesis is supported by evidence 

 from various Southeastern fossil deposits (Holman 1976, 1982; 

 Slaughter 1975). It is well documented that boreal elements were estab- 

 lished in the Southern Applachians during the Pleistocene, but the pres- 

 ence of northern species in the Coastal Plain is not generally recognized. 

 Whitehead (1963) discussed northern elements of Pleistocene flora in 

 the Southeast and included information on two North Carolina Coastal 

 Plain bays. Based on fossil pollen from Singletary Lake and Rockhound 

 Bay, Whitehead showed that northern plants once were present in east- 

 ern North Carolina. 



Whether floral and faunal elements reached their distributional lim- 

 its as a result of the effects of glacial displacements and interglacial 

 warming periods as is widely accepted, or did so simultaneously during 

 a period of climatic equality, is not critical to this discussion. Either 

 situation could produce the current assemblage of northern and south- 

 ern elements that persists on the outer Coastal Plain of North Carolina. 

 However, it is interesting that in some areas, well beyond their typical 

 distributional limits, both northern and southern elements now coexist. 

 As the climate shifted to the present regime, some relict and semi-relict 

 populations were stranded along the outer Coastal Plain as well as in 

 the southern Appalachians. Just as frost pocket bogs, areas of high ele- 

 vation, and cove forests provided local refugia in the mountains, poco- 

 sins and Carolina bays apparently have done so on the Coastal Plain. 



Pocosins as Key Coastal Plain Habitats 



In addition to their roles as geographic refugia and climatic buffers, 

 pocosins and Carolina bays were important as natural stands of early 

 successional habitat. Their subclimax communities and complex zona- 

 tion provided habitats for early to intermediate successional mammals 

 that in precolonial times would not otherwise occur regularly on the 

 Coastal Plain. Today, pocosins and related communities are not criti- 

 cally important for the geographical maintenance of most early succes- 

 sional mammal species because grazing, mowing, lumbering and similar 

 activities produce a wide array of early successional stages over exten- 

 sive areas. For example, Robinson and Lee (1980) pointed out that 

 Marmota monax was unable to invade the Piedmont Plateau and Coast- 

 al Plain in the Southeast prior to extensive artificial maintenance of 

 early upland communities and corriders for dispersal. The same is prob- 

 ably true for Vulpes fulva (Lee et al. 1982). Thus, for animal species 

 already associated with pocosins and therefore widely distributed across 

 the Coastal Plain, local expansion of their populations into disturbed 



