In the Great Plains, many livestock grazing areas include patches of northern floodplain forest. These forests are complex due to the mixture of many physical and biological features. There is substantial development of edge habitat at the interfaces between stream and forest, and between forest and adjacent uplands. Open stands of northern floodplain forest with heavy herb cover are ideal waterfowl nesting habitat. Riparian ecosystems are important to at least one-third of the species or subspecies listed as threatend or endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Many riparian species are candidates for future federal listing as threatened or endangered.
Breeding birds along the Platte River, Nebraska, are diverse. Some 142 species have been observed nesting in northern floodplain forest and adjacent ecosystems. In many areas, decreased flow due to dams and irrigation has decreased meandering and increased land area. Species which nest in northern floodplain forest have increased because of the extension of woody vegetation into former river channels. Floodplain forests help regulate water level, flow rate and direction, bank stability, and potential evapotranspiration.