By Cameron Lewis Barton
Day 1, Thursday, September 25, 2025
Our team of Apalachicola Riverkeeper volunteers and scientists met up at a rural Chipola River landing near Wewahitchka, ready for some field work out in the Apalachicola River floodplain and sloughs.
A cool breeze, clear blue skies, and super low water levels greeted us. The Apalachicola Riverkeeper boat was ready and waiting to ferry the team down-river to start our day. We greeted each other, loaded up, and headed to our drop off point. On the way downriver, old house boats with rusted roofs and floating decks dotted the riverbanks. Fishermen were getting an early start to the day. Great blue herons were gracefully starting their morning. The cypress and Ogeechee tupelo trees showed ring marks from earlier high water. It was great to be back on the river.
John Tracy, Assistant Professor of Forestry at Louisiana State University’s AgCenter/Renewable Natural Resources Department in Baton Rouge, LA, would lead our efforts for the next two days. A forester and ecologist, John is focusing on sustainable forest management and ecological analysis of large coastal plain river systems in the Southeast. Specifically, he is focused on shifting forest species in bottomland sites in the floodplains, due to the change in flood patterns. These changes have significant ecological implications.
On Day 1, our team headed to Spiders Cut. Part of the river system on the Chipola River, it has slow moving or still water and serves as an important ecosystem component in connecting rivers and floodplains. Over time, sloughs have become hydrologically disconnected. The Apalachicola Riverkeeper’s Slough Restoration Project is allowing waters to again flow into the floodplain swamps and backwater ponds. This is critical to support the rebound of floodplain trees, like the Nyssa ogeche or “Ogeechee tupelo” and the Nyssa aquatica, commonly called the “water tupelo.”
Rivers are pathways for transport of water, energy, nutrients, and sediments from the land to the floodplain systems. They help maintain diversity and ecosystem services. Water distribution allows key tree species to thrive but also requires inundation to exist.
The entrance to our site at Spiders Cut slough is an active Restoration Construction Area. We offloaded onto the slick riverbank, shoes sinking and slipping into the muck. We gathered our gear, including rakes, water bottles, and blue buckets. Fall is in the air. Exposed cypress knees and tree roots show the lack of rain over the past months. The kingfishers flit by, chirping all the while. Purple iron weed flowers along the bank welcomed us. We hiked in through cottonmouth grass and downed limbs. Once we were at our starting point, John oriented us to our purpose for the day and the focus of his scientific research: regeneration of swamp species. The Apalachicola River has complicated forest dynamics with specific challenges. The shifting forest species is a focus of John’s continued science and research. Field research will lead to monitoring, looking at trends over decades, and working with seed studies. John reminds us that the process of science is not quick and immediate.
John received a grant to study regeneration of swamp species. Teams like us will go in and collect seeds of Ogeechee and water tupelo trees, as well as cypress and ash trees. His team at LSU will then grow seeds into seedlings in a greenhouse. The following year, a team will come in and remove some of the competing hardwood trees, such as Quercus lyrata, “the overcup oak”, with a hack and squirt method. This is an aquatic area-safe chemical which kills targeted trees and does not allow them to sprout back from the bottom. This will limit these trees from the mid-story system when they are already established. Removal teams will work over a period of five days in 2026 in the area where we are collecting seeds during this trip.
In 2027, the seedlings, grown from our collected seeds, will be shipped back over to the Apalachicola River and planted in areas where
John’s project has removed the competing trees – the area of our collection. Monitoring for success in 2028 is the goal. This grant will also fund a master’s student through this entire process.
John’s earlier studies show there may be evidence of a connection between leaf litter and nutrient dynamics in the system. Competitors have more hardy leaves and take longer to break down in the system. This can affect food webs, not only in the floodplain, but also out in the bay. In contrast, tupelo and cypress trees lose all of their softer leaves each year, adding nutrients in their leaf litter falls, whether you have a hard freeze or not. Oaks and water hickory do not lose all of their leaves each year, especially in a mild winter, therefore, a lot of the nutrient capacity is kept up in the canopy.
Swamp species add their nutrients every year. This difference in leaf litter may affect the entire dynamics and the ecology of the river system, ultimately affecting water quality. Forest restoration can also affect water quality, and projects like John’s are trying to enact change through restoration. John points out that decay is slower with less water, but the hydrologic restoration in progress in Spiders Cut will increase the frequency in duration of flooding, particularly in the low area. Swamp species like Ogeechee, and especially the water tupelo, are better adapted to this process. Scientists hope increases in the success in regenerating and competing with overpowering species like overcup oak, ash, and water hickory will improve the ecosystem. These competitors also create too much shade, even in the mid story.
Our job today was to collect green, red, and yellowish-brown Ogeechee tupelo seeds (and any water tupelo) and fill our buckets. It was like
a giant Easter egg hunt scanning the ground for the high-quality seeds. The seeds would kerplunk in the bottom of the bucket until a solid base layer was collected. At one point, we stood in a spot that was high enough in elevation to expect certain species to dominate. As we moved to lower elevations where the majority of the swamp species were, and other hardwood species were not supposed to be, we noticed that it has become so dry, that the competitors start to have greater success in moving to the swampy areas. This is a concern.
We tromped through the bottomlands, amongst downed limbs, tall crayfish chimneys, and waist-high cottonmouth grass. Mossy tree bases, old timbered cypress trunks, brilliant red Lobelia cardinal flower, poison ivy, briars, mucky bottom, cypress knees, and even two moccasins were par for the course. We bent over foraging for the tupelo seeds. Five thousand seeds for Day 1 was our goal. Tallies would be collected and recorded during water breaks so we could start our counts back at zero. Out on the field, we used LIDAR maps of Spiders Cut, showing the vegetation transect and plots. As we made our way through the terrain, it was nice to be oriented to our location as it is easy to get turned around deep in the floodplain.
Buckets became heavier as we tromped through the terrain. An afternoon rain shower moved in, and after a month of almost no rainfall, droplets hitting the canopy above brought refreshment. It was perfect timing to cool us down as we took a short break.
Spiders Cut was a great place to learn more about the river system. All day, John was teaching and showing us the difference between the Ogeechee and the water tupelo seeds and how to husk them to see the difference of the core. He pointed out the tall one-day-old overcup oaks and explained the difference in the rate of growth versus the smaller cypress and tupelo seedlings. Discussions of seed dispersal in the floodplain and how seeds can float and also get transported by animals reminded me to think about the system as a whole. It is all connected.
We kept moving, searching for more seeds, and on occasion, we came across smaller tupelo trees laden with seed. John would energetically shake the trees at the trunk and it would rain down tupelo seeds! This made for a quick filling of our buckets. We even tasted some of them, noting the citrusy-lime flavor. Off in the distance, owls were hooting and pileated woodpeckers laughing. Frogs and spiders and all sorts of animal tracks reminded us of this incredible ecosystem.
Later in the afternoon we were getting a little sweaty and weary from a good day of seed collection. We headed back towards the boat and decided to cool off and clean off some mud on our clothes and boots with river water. Ahh, how refreshing. We loaded up, satisfied with our haul, totaling just under 5000 seeds. Doug, Dan, John, and I all pitched in, and made great headway towards the 10,000 seed goal over two days. Friday, we would finish it off.
Back at the landing, we poured all of the collected seeds into one big cooler, and we saw our collective bounty. Off to rest for Day 2!
Apalachicola Riverkeeper volunteer Cameron Lewis Barton is a Maclay School science teacher in Tallahassee.