Furthermore many understory trees and saplings were unaffected by the hurricane despite the loss of the canopy trees. These survivors will grow rapidly and form the new canopy. In other cases, seeds and new tree seedlings will become established and eventually form the new forest. It is disturbing that an exotic species such as the Chinese tallow tree has such a high representation in the understory, while the more valuable oak species commonly found in bottomland hardwood forest sites are underrepresented. This suggests that exotics species may play more of a role in recovery from disturbance than they have historically and can alter the nature and function of these forests.
Hurricanes are an important agent of forest disturbance in coastal wet forests.
The recovery of the forest will depend on the previous forest cover, the type of damage, and the specific environmental conditions affecting regeneration. The harvest of the virgin cypress swamps and the building of levees earlier this century caused widespread change in the forests of the Atchafalaya Basin. Increased sedimentation has resulted in the dominance of willow stands in the southwest portion of the basin, an area that was most heavily damaged by the hurricane because of the willow's susceptibility to hurricane-force winds. Various climate change models suggest that under global warming, tropical storm intensity might increase as much as 50 percent. If so, then the forests of the Atchafalaya Basin will be at greater risk of damage, and intensive land management may be required to direct the developing forest toward more desirable forest cover.