SUBSTRATE:  Soils generally contain more organic matter and moisture than adjacent, well-drained sandy soils.

TOPOGRAPHY:   On slopes between upland pinelands and lake margins, or floodplain forests and marshes; also in some uplands protected from fire.

VEGETATION:  In typically narrow bands; varies from warm temperate, mixed deciduous-evergreen flora (e.g., oaks, hickories, beech, magnolia) in north to subtropical evergreen flora in south; many species of trees, but few species of herbs, except for diverse ferns in peninsular hammocks; hammocks on the Apalachicola Bluffs contain Torreya taxifolia, a tree on the verge of extinction, as well as other endemic plant species.

FAUNA:  Diversity of vertebrates, including bobcat, gray fox, white-tailed deer, southern flying squirrel, Mississippi kite, barred owl, pileated woodpecker, eastern diamondback rattlesnake.

PROCESSES / DYNAMICS / ABIOTIC FACTORS: Continually being modified by changing and variable environment; combinations of species in some hardwood forests were not present before European settlement.

HUMAN IMPACTS:  Amount of land in hammocks has changed little over past 200 years, but composition of plant species has been affected by human disturbance; increasingly threatened by residential / commercial development, e.g., around Gainesville and Tallahassee.

ANIMALS AND PLANTS NATIVE TO ECOSYSTEM: List of selectable animals and plants native to the Hammocks ecosystem, with detailed descriptions and pictures on each.