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Plant communities of New Brunswick in relation to environmental variation
Author(s) -
Roberts Mark R.,
Wuest Lawrence J.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of vegetation science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1654-1103
pISSN - 1100-9233
DOI - 10.2307/3237061
Subject(s) - canonical correspondence analysis , vegetation (pathology) , plant community , geography , physical geography , ordination , ecology , canonical correlation , environmental science , vegetation type , correspondence analysis , elevation (ballistics) , scale (ratio) , community structure , vegetation classification , grassland , ecological succession , abundance (ecology) , biology , cartography , mathematics , medicine , statistics , geometry , pathology
. The objective of this study was to quantitatively describe vegetation‐environment relationships at a regional scale within the Province of New Brunswick, Canada, using vegetation and environment data from 3947 provincial forestry sample plots. The major plant community types in the province were identified using cluster analysis. Relationships of these communities to climate, topography and soil variables were analyzed by Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA), using both a reduced data set consisting of cluster likelihood scores × sample plots and an unreduced species × sample plots data matrix. The vegetation types and major axes of environmental variation were mapped to examine the geographic distributions of these factors within the province. Eight communities were identified and described in terms of enhanced/reduced species (significantly higher or lower frequencies of occurrence in a specific community type relative to all plots) and common species (species in the community type with the highest frequencies of occurrence). The canonical axes explained 25 % of the variation in the vegetation cluster data. Vegetation composition was related to three major environmental gradients representing climate and elevation, soil moisture, and soil fertility. The geographic distributions of vegetation communities exhibited predictable but weak correspondence to the geographic distributions of individual environmental factors. Our findings emphasize the overriding importance of climate and topography and the secondary importance of soil factors in controlling vegetation pattern at the regional scale.