Floristic Relationships of Mud Flats and Shorelines at Cave Run Lake, Kentucky

An exceptionally dry growing season during 1999 exposed extensive mud flats at Cave Run Lake, a flood-control reservoir in northeast Kentucky. We compared the mud flat flora in 1999 to the shoreline flora assessed in the preceding year. Excluding trees and shrubs, there were 243 plant species. Sixty-four species were found only on mud flats, 82 were only on frequently flooded shorelines, and 14 were only on infrequently flooded shorelines. As flood frequency increased, the percentage of annual species increased from 11% to 41%. Although many species found on mud flats were also found on frequently flooded shorelines (coefficient of similarity = 0.39), the highest coefficient of similarity (0.40) was calculated for another mud flat on the Scioto River ca. 90 km from Cave Run Lake. This suggests that reservoir sediments may accumulate seeds from both local and regional floras.