Transcript Lecture 2_Plant Community Nomenclature

Plant Community Nomenclature
 Plant communities and associations are
named on the basis of dominant species in
the various layers.
 Layers are subdivisions of vegetation
within a plant community or association
based on height (Figure 1).
Plant Community Nomenclature
 Plant communities and associations are
named on the basis of dominant species in
the various layers.
 Layers are subdivisions of vegetation within
a plant community or association based on
height (Figure 1).
 They are placed into the categories of trees,
shrubs, forbs and grasses.
Plant Community Characteristics
 Plant communities have 8 important
characteristics:
a. Composition
f. Ecotones
b. Structure
g. Productivity
c. Dominance
h. Influence
d. Physiognomy
e. Indicators
Factors Affecting Plant Community
Distribution
 There are six basic factors that control
plant distribution:
a. Edaphic
b. Biotic
c. Pyric (fire)
d. Climatic
e. Plagic (man)
f. Chronologic
Plant Community Classification

There are seven general steps involved in
plant community classification:
1. Review the existing literature on the
vegetation which will be classified.
2. Obtain aerial photographs of the area.
3. On the basis of aerial photographs and
visual examination, delimit the possible
plant communities (use what appear to be
dominant species in each community for
naming).
General steps involved in plant
community classification cont.
4. Transfer the data to a topographic map.
5. Stratify each community and sample for
plant cover and frequency (avoid ecotones
in sampling).
6. Evaluate the degree of association
between communities.
7. Rename and remap the communities on
the basis of analysis; shade ecotonal
areas.