Why Alabama’s Paint Rock Valley is North America’s biodiversity jewel

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In the early 2000s, native Alabamian E.O. Wilson, one of the most acclaimed naturalists in the world, encouraged scientists to set up a research center to study the biodiversity of his home state. 

There were plenty of places to choose from, including “America’s Amazon ”(AKA the Mobile-Tensaw Delta), the Red Hills in South Alabama, Cahaba River watershed and much more. He was joined by an impressive team: UCLA scientist Stephen Hubbell, Smithsonian researchers and Wilson-protégé Bill Finch.

The place they selected? 

The Paint Rock Valley, an area in the northeast corner of Alabama, primarily in Jackson County.

Throughout 2025, The Bama Buzz has examined special places and landscapes in Alabama. Earlier this month, we wrote about mountain longleaf forests.

In this edition, we learn about the “Paint Rock,” and how a research center is unlocking ways to preserve and protect this globally significant place.

Paint Rock: A center of biodiversity

Bill Finch, founder and executive director of the Paint Rock Forest Research Center, doesn’t hold back when he describes Paint Rock as the center of biodiversity in North America and, in some cases, the globe. 

“Alabama rivers are abundant, but the Paint Rock River is particularly rich. Any stretch of that river, you’re going to have more fish species than the entire state of California. Many of those species occur, almost nowhere else, but in the Paint Rock system.

We have three and a half to four times more species of mussels in the Paint Rock River — which is 54 miles long — than in all of Western and Eastern Europe combined.”

In addition to fish and mussels, Paint Rock is also a global hotspot for crayfish. 

Fun fact: Alabama has over 100 different kinds of crayfish, far more than any other state, and the greatest concentration of them may be in the Middle Tennessee River where the Paint Rock River resides as a tributary to the Tennessee.

“The Middle Tennessee River system, where it drops through Alabama, is certainly the richest part of the Tennessee River system, and by almost every measure, the richest stretch of aquatic life in North America.”

Bill Finch, Executive Director of the Paint Rock Forest Research Center

And don’t forget the trees. According to Finch and the Biota of North America Program, Paint Rock and Northeast Alabama is the global center for deciduous forest diversity in North America. That includes:

• Oaks
• Hickories 
• Maples
• Ash

Plateaus from another planet

How did Paint Rock become this special biodiverse oasis? It starts with the plateaus on Sand Mountain and northeast Alabama.

“There are plateaus throughout northeast Alabama. A plateau is a very special kind of place. It’s a big flat area that’s highly elevated. It looks like you’re getting to the top of the mountain, and you realize, gosh, there’s another planet, a whole kingdom up there, because it’s this big flat top place that extends as far as you can see.

Embedded in the mountains are these roaring rivers that have been cutting down through these plateaus for millions and millions of years. And as they do, they create this incredible forested habitat on steep slopes with limestone that was deposited over hundreds of millions of years.”

Bill Finch, Executive Director of the Paint Rock Forest Research Center

The limestone-rich mountains, slopes and valley also creates another unique landscape within the Paint Rock and throughout northeast Alabama: caves.  

“The Paint Rock Valley is North America’s center for cave life diversity as well. We’ve got an incredible number of caves. They’re stunning. They run for miles and miles. Each individual cave can run 20 miles or more.” 

Bill Finch, Executive Director of the Paint Rock Forest Research Center

As a result, it is not surprising to learn that, because of its abundance of caves, the National Speleological Society is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. 

Because of its unique geographical, geological and biological makeup, Paint Rock has become a refuge for all kinds of plant and animal species — from small crayfish, darters and mussels in streams, to different types of forests from oaks to hickories.

Why a research center matters

Finch calls Paint Rock a warehouse that we need to share with the rest of the country, especially now since the climate is changing.

That’s why the Paint Rock Forest Research Center is important.

The Center is the ultimate natural laboratory. It resides in Jackson County and has about 6,000 acres of land available to study, including almost 4,000 acres owned by The Nature Conservancy in Alabama.

The Paint Rock Forest Center partners not only with UCLA, the Smithsonian, The Nature Conservancy and E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation but also Alabama’s universities and higher education institutions from as far as Maine.

They host researchers from all over the world at their facility, experts in multiple disciplines, that include:

• Caves
• Insects
• Birds
• Forests
• Rivers and streams and much more

They have the largest and richest forest census plot in North America. 

As a result almost 90,000 trees have been tagged, mapped, identified, measured, and will be followed for 50 years.

Finch added: 

“We want to know the DNA of each tree so we know whether that tree has special characteristics that it is going to contribute to the future of North America.”

Respect Paint Rock: Get involved

What does the future look like for Paint Rock?

Thanks to the Paint Rock Forest Research Center, there is a chance we can protect it. 

Finch summed it up best:

“In Alabama we need to recognize that you’re walking on holy ground. It’s an incredibly rare place. It is an incredibly important place, and we need to respect that. 

I think the greatest threat now to Paint Rock will be the fact that we don’t recognize what a beautiful and unusual asset it is like we have in many other areas of Alabama, and that could be a big disaster. The research center is doing all it can to drive conservation, to develop conservation plans so that we can protect Paint Rock and contribute to the future of North America.”

If you want to be a part of saving the center of forest, aquatic and cave diversity, visit paintrock.org.

Next up: Black Belt Prairie

For our third installment about special places and landscapes in Alabama, we examine the biologically diverse Black Belt Prairie and a family dedicated to saving it.

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