Historical/cultural parks...Our ecological treasures

The Cumberland Piedmont Network includes 14 national parks distributed among eight southeastern states and six different physiographic regions. Most of its parks are less than 5000 acres, with a focus on cultural resources such as battlefields, whereas its large parks are better known for their rich ecological communities and so get most of the attention from researchers. However, smaller parks also contain significant natural resources including globally rare limestone glades, granitic domes, and wetlands. These small, culturally managed parks represent unique opportunities to conduct research in relatively easily accessible national parks and so further knowledge of our ecological treasures.