Typology and ecology of Californian serpentine annual grasslands

Abstract

Abstract. A first classification for serpentine annual grasslands distributed throughout northern and central California is proposed. This study has followed the Braun‐Blanquet phyto‐sociological system based on floristical, biogeographical and bioclimatic features of the sampled areas. Numerical analyses of classification and ordination were applied to the floristic relevés. Minimum Variance Clustering grouped relevés into basic classification units that allowed us to define low‐hierarchical syntaxonomical units (associations) and ‘communities’. A Principal Coordinate Analysis was used to extract those ecological parameters related to the axes that separate those classification units from the previous dendrogram. The results showed that differences in species composition was mainly due to a continentality gradient and the shady effect of an overstory vegetation. On the basis of both analyses we propose a first syntaxonomic scheme on ultramafic (mainly serpentine) annual plant communities of the biogeographical Californian Region that comprises four associations, two subassociations and some provisional communities.

Local Scale Vegetation Mapping and Ecotone Analysis in the Southern Coast Range, California

“…Some of the series encountered were not in the manual but were still named using the format described in the MCV. Asterisks (*) indicate those vegetation types that have not been previously described by Holland and Keil (1995), Sawyer and Keeler-Wolf (1995), or by other classifications or studies (i.e., EpHng and Lewis 1942;Munz and Keck 1949;Thorne 1976;Kirkpatrick and Hutchinson 1977;Paysen et al 1980;Westman 1983;Holland 1986; Barbour and Major 1988;Desimone and Burk 1992;Rodriquez-Rojo et al 2001;CNDDB 2003).…”

Resolution of Respect: Michael G. Barbour (1942–2021)

“…Michael’s goal was to learn how they would characterize the local California vegetation and how their approach and resultant synthesis might advance the synthetic work on California vegetation that he and his colleagues were developing. The result was a series of publications senior authored by Daniel Sánchez‐Mata, which to this day represent one of the most comprehensive and detailed applications of the Braun‐Blanquet system to vegetation of the conterminous 48 US states and which influenced the subsequent development of the US National Vegetation Classification (e.g., Rodríguez‐Rojo et al 2001).…”

The History of Vegetation Classification and Mapping in California

“…However, in California much cooperation has proceeded through the association of western vegetation ecologists and European phytosociologists in recent years. This work has been particularly fruitful in certain vegetation types such as serpentine grassland (Rodriguez-Rojo et al 2001a, 2001b and vernal pools (e.g., Barbour et al 2003Barbour et al , 2005. As the California and the national vegetation classification systems grow using the plant association as the basis of vegetation description, there will be less and less to argue about, particularly as reanalysis of an ever-growing data set of comparable relevé samples is developed.…”

“…European phytosociological research has continued in California with several useful publications emerging since the early 1990s (Peinado et al 1994(Peinado et al , 1997Rodriguez-Rojo et al 2001a, 2001b.…”