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Wildlife, Animals, and Plants |
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VALUE AND USE
WOOD PRODUCTS VALUE:Fremont cottonwood is moderately light in weight and color, uniform in texture, and has a fairly straight grain. The wood is relatively soft and weak, but its strength-to-weight ratio is high [13,45]. The untreated wood of all cottonwoods (Populus spp.) has low resistance to decay when in contact with the ground [45]. Primary wood products include lumber, veneer, and pulpwood [13,92,103]. Finished products include crates and boxes for food storage and pallets [13,88]. The wood is used locally in the southwestern United States for fenceposts and firewood [13,18,88,92,103] and is preferred for kilning bricks in Arizona [10]. The wood shavings from Fremont cottonwood are used in livestock bedding, mulches, packing material, and insulation [13,88]. IMPORTANCE TO LIVESTOCK AND WILDLIFE:Riparian habitats occupied by Fremont cottonwood add diversity to the arid and semiarid environments of the American Southwest [91,127]. Fremont cottonwood and Fremont cottonwood-willow stands provide valuable habitat for many species of birds and other wildlife in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. Species such as golden eagle, Swainson's hawk, red-tailed hawk, and Bell's vireo build their nests in the crown [17,72,131,137], while various cavity-nesting birds nest in the dead trunks and limbs of Fremont cottonwood [60,65,79]. In Nevada, Fremont cottonwood sites are breeding areas for great blue heron [66]. Birds known to have a high affinity for Fremont cottonwood stands include hawks (gray, black, zone-tailed, red-tailed) [61,89,131], bald eagle [74], and woodpeckers (downy and ladder-backed) [52]. Fremont cottonwood communities also provide cover, nesting, and foraging habitats for other birds [11,52,53,60,89,90,102,109,130], ringtail [19], squirrels, beavers [103], and other rodents [3,109]. In California, Fremont cottonwood-willow and willow communities provide the greatest overstory canopy coverage of any desert riparian vegetation type. Consequently, they provide a wider range of perches, nest sites, and foraging substrates; they are known to support roughly 2 to 5 times more breeding bird species than vegetation types with less overstory [54]. More than 50% of the bird species breeding in the homogeneous Fremont cottonwood stands along the Verde River in Arizona depended exclusively on this vegetation type [37]. Fremont cottonwood communities provide shade for domestic livestock, provide a food source for beavers, elk, deer, and squirrels, and help maintain mesic habitats for upland amphibian and reptile species in the Sonoran Desert [28,94,103]. PALATABILITY:The palatability of Fremont cottonwood to domestic livestock and wildlife has been rated as follows [47,135]:
This species has been called "sweet cottonwood" because horses eat the inner bark [104]. NUTRITIONAL VALUE:Fremont cottonwood is rated as fair for both energy and protein content. The nutritional value of Fremont cottonwood for wildlife has been rated as follows [47]:
COVER VALUE:The value of Fremont cottonwood as cover for domestic animals and wildlife has been rated as follows [47]:
VALUE FOR REHABILITATION OF DISTURBED SITES:Fremont cottonwood's rapid early growth makes it well suited for revegetating riparian sites [47,126]. It has been successfully planted in many riparian rehabilitation projects [36,82,92,126,164] and is recommended for revegetating areas in the Southwest where invasive saltcedar has been removed [88,99]. Fremont cottonwood, along with willows and other native plants, has also been used to restore, enhance, or create bird habitat in riparian areas [46,63]. Fremont cottonwood can be successfully planted in chaparral-mountain shrub, big sagebrush, pinyon-juniper, and desert shrub communities where there is sufficient moisture [126,127]. It can grow on disturbed sites removed from groundwater as long as good moisture is available in the spring, but on such sites it will exhibit a shrubby growth form [26]. Plants readily establish from nursery-grown containerized stock and rooted cuttings [36]. Growth of seedlings is rapid on favorable sites, and the roots of established seedlings are effective stabilizers of alluvial soil [47,82,126]. OTHER USES AND VALUES:Fremont cottonwood has been widely planted as an ornamental and a shade tree, and used as a windbreak throughout the southwestern United States [92,97,104]. Native Americans ate the inner bark of Fremont cottonwood for antiscorbutic [18,100]. The bark and leaves were used to make poultices to relieve swelling, treat cuts, cure headaches, and wash broken limbs, and to treat saddle sores and swollen legs of horses [18,166]. The twigs were used by the Pima for basket materials [100], and Cahuilla tribes used the wood for mortars and tools [18]. In northern Mexico, small industries utilize the wood to make bowls and small statues [88]. Fremont cottonwoods were used by the Pueblo tribes for drums and were the preferred wood species for Quechan cremations [114] MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS:Fremont cottonwood communities are declining as a result of human activities. A 1914 survey along the Gila River of Arizona showed 1,584 acres (641 ha) - 33% of the survey area - was occupied by Fremont and other cottonwoods. Fremont cottonwood was the most widespread riparian community of the Southwest. A 1944 survey of the same area showed on 160 acres (65 ha) so occupied; by 1964, Fremont cottonwood was no longer a cover type: only a few scattered trees remained [154]. Cattle grazing prevents successful regeneration of Fremont cottonwood seedlings [8], and exclusion of grazing in Fremont cottonwood riparian zones has been recommended [68,134,137,159]. However, Asplund and Gooch [8] maintain that the impacts of grazing are unclear and that recruitment is affected more by flooding and the creation of suitable habitat than by grazing pressure. Fremont cottonwoods and other components of riparian streamside stands are important in erosion control and fisheries production; they stabilize banks and provide for thermal cover and debris recruitment [77,126]. If possible, buffer strips of these woodlands should be maintained upland from streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds [78]. Regulating stream flows to mimic the natural flood regime (duration, peak flow, and timing) could be used to establish Fremont cottonwood and decrease saltcedar [144]. Decreased flooding, stabilized flows, introduction of exotics (saltcedar, Russian-olive, and leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula)), water diversion due to damming and agricultural use, and stream channelization have led to drought stress and the subsequent decrease in Fremont cottonwood and associated riparian species [26,36]. The loss of Fremont cottonwoods could mean the loss of the riparian woodland ecosystem [26]. See "Other Management Considerations" within the "Management Considerations, Value and Use" section of black cottonwood for further information on the effects of watercourse damming and stream diversion on Fremont and other cottonwoods.
Related categories for SPECIES: Populus fremontii | Fremont Cottonwood |
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