Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Last Edited: 1/28/2011

Background - Fort Leonard Wood is a 63,000 acre installation located in south-central Missouri. It is within the Central Hardwoods Bird Conservation Region (BCR24) and covered by PIF Ozarks and Ouachitas Bird Conservation Plan (Physiographic Area 19). Fort Leonard Wood bird populations are very diverse and the site comprises a large portion of the Audubon-listed Important Bird Area Big Piney Hill and is adjacent to the Mark Twain National Forest (Houston/Rolla/Cedar Creek Ranger District).

NLCD 2001 imagery of Fort Leonard Wood, MO and 20 km buffer (Nott, M. P. and T. Morris. 2007. Performance Measure Analysis: Examples of Comparing and Contrasting Installation-specific Demographics with Regional Demographics and Landscape Characteristics PDF (7MB) ).

Fort Leonard Wood is situated in a transition area where the western edge of the Central Hardwoods region deciduous forest meets the savanna tall-grass prairie. Dominant plant community types include upland forest, bottomland forest, savanna, prairie, marsh, and swamp. Forests (mainly oak-hickory with some sycamore-elm-soft maple) are the principal vegetative type, covering approximately 75 percent of the installation. MAPS stations are located primarily in deciduous forest including bottomlands, uplands, and floodplains, but also in riparian forest, oldfields, and a walnut plantation.

Management Issues - Existing management plans for Fort Leonard Wood include fire management of successional habitat as buffers to the risk of wildfire from range activities. MAPS is detecting optimal successional habitat for Field Sparrows after prescribed burn treatments. Stations have been strategically moved to monitor a suite of species of management concern. IBP also monitors Cerulean Warblers in riparian forest.

MAPS Monitoring (1993-2008) - The MAPS Station Information file contains descriptions and geographic location information for the eight MAPS stations that have ever operated at Fort Leonard Wood. Stations SMRI and MIRI were replaced in 2003 by BRCE and TIBO. Google Earth generated maps of the Fort Leonard Wood location (LEON) and of each currently operating station (BIPI, LABO, MIPO, MACE, BRCE, TIBO) show the specific arrangement of the nets and the associated vegetation.

Installation Contact:
Joe Proffitt
Biologist
joe.proffitt@us.army.mil
Tel: 573-596-0871

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