New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Alpine tussockland communities and vegetation-landform-soil relationships, Wapiti Lake, Fiordland, New Zealand

A. B. ROSE
J. B. J. HARRISON*
K. H. PLATT

Forestry Research Centre,
Forest Research Institute
P.O. Box 31-011, Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract Classification andordination of 139 plots and 207 species in a 2 km2 alpine area revealed nine tussockland communities within two broad com- munity groups. The two community groups occupied different ends of a gradient in soil development, nutrient status, and drainage, indicating that soil factors were the dominant broad-scale influence on the vegetation. Within this pattern, the communities were mainly distributed along an elevational gradient. Each community and community group contained 1-12 "indicator species" seldom found in others. Of these, Chionochloa pallens and C. acicularis were the only snow tussocks. Although the distribution and abundance of different snow tussocks broadly reflected the soils and elevational gradients, many indicator species showed a markedly stronger response, being virtually restricted to one community group or community. The distribution of soils on the different landforms suggested large differences in surface age and sta- bility, and was reflected in a close relationship between vegetation and landform. Information on landforms as broad indicators of the rate and intensity of soil disturbances should provide useful interpretive or stratifying information in Fiordland and probably other humid alpine areas. Interpretation of large catchment surveys should improve if rapidly obtained floristic and landform data are combined with the usual estimates of snow tussock abundance and indirect environmental factors.

Keywords alpine vegetation; environmental factors; plant community analysis; landforms; soil development; altitudinal zonation; tussock grasslands; Chionochloa spp.; Fiordland

Received 8 December 1987; accepted 5 April 1988
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1988, Vol. 26: 525-540
0028-825X/88/2604-0525$2.50/0 © Crown copyright 1988

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (1867K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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