Biomes and Vegetation Types
ENVS303
California Transect
Dr Fred Watson & Dr Susan Alexander
Outline
• Key terms/concepts
• What is a biome?
What is a vegetation type?
• How are biomes determined by climate?
• What else effects biomes?
(humans, topography, fire, herbivory)
• What do biomes look like
and where do they grow?
• Biome quiz
Key terms/concepts
• Moisture gradient
– Desert, Grassland, Shrubland, Woodland, Forest, Rainforest / Cloud forest
• Disturbance gradient
– Woodland, Savannah, Grassland, Desert
• Latitude gradient
– Tropical, Sub-tropical, Temperate, Boreal, Tundra, Polar
• Elevation gradient
– Coastal, Valley, Foothill, Montane, Subalpine, Alpine / Tundra / Paramo, Ice
• Scale gradient
– Vegetation type, Biome
• Local exceptions
– Chemical desert, Edaphic grassland, Irrigated pasture, Urban desert,
Riparian forest, Krummholz, Avalanche runouts, Lava fields, Moraines...
What is a Biome?
• A major regional community of plants and animals
with similar life forms and environmental conditions;
• The largest geographical biotic unit, and named after
the dominant type of life form;
• Biomes are distinguished primarily by their
predominant plants and are associated with particular
climates
World biomes
What is a ‘vegetation type’?
• Whereas a biome is a global classification, including
plants and animals,....
• A vegetation type is a classification usually at a
smaller scale (e.g. continental or statewide) and just
applying to plants
• There are many classification systems, the one for
vegetation that we will use is the Wildlife Habitat
Relationships (WHR) system mapped by the
California Gap Analysis project in the late 1990s
Some vegetation types in California
Biotic zonation by elevation and aspect
in the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada
California
Vegetation
Types
Comparison of systems of community classification
(from Schoenherr, 1992)
Biome
California Community
Grassland
Valley Grassland
Desert
Cactus Scrub
Life Zone
Sagebrush Scrub
Creosote Bush Scrub
Shadscale Scrub
Lower Sonoran
Alkali Sink
Blackbrush Scrub
Joshua Tree Woodland
Scrub
Coastal Sage Scrub
Lower Chaparral
Upper Chaparral
Upper Sonoran
Desert Chaparral
Oak Woodland
Coniferous Forest
Temperate Rain Forest
Pinyon-Juniper Woodland
Yellow Pine Forest
Transition
Lodgepole-Red Fir Forest
Canadian
Subalpine Forest
Hudsonian
Coast Redwood Forest
Mixed Evergreen Forest
Tundra
Alpine
Temperate Deciduous Forest
Riparian
Arctic-Alpine
Factors influencing
plant growth and survival
• Climate
–
–
–
–
–
Moisture / Precipitation
Heat / Temperature
Light (Photosynthetic is +, but ultraviolet is - )
Wind
Air pressure
• Non-climate
–
–
–
–
Fire
Herbivory
Irrigation
Destruction
Earth’s Major Terrestrial Biomes
Whittaker biome diagram
Global biome
quiz
Global biome quiz
Global biome quiz
Images from www
Global biome
quiz
Image from Thor Anderson
Global biome quiz
Global biome quiz
Global biome quiz
Global
biome
quiz
Global biome
quiz
Global
biome
quiz
Global biome quiz
Global biome quiz
Global biome quiz
Global biome quiz
Global biome
quiz
Global biome quiz
Global biome quiz
Global
biome
quiz
Global biome
quiz
Global
biome
quiz
Global biome
quiz
Global biome
quiz
Whittaker biome diagram
What biomes are there
in California?
?
California
Image from CDFG atlas
Transect route
Image from CDFG atlas
Whittaker biome diagram
(C) Fred Watson, 2014
(
Whittaker biome diagram
(C) Fred Watson, 2006
(
Whittaker biome diagram
Note that the climate estimates used to locate the red lines are at a coarse spatial scale, so inaccuracies will present at fine scales.
An example is White Mtn, which is alpine tundra (not subalpine forest, as one might infer from this coarse-scale diagram).
The diagram thus represents a hypothesis about what you might find at each location, to be confirmed by our own inspection!
(C) Fred Watson, 2006
California
Vegetation
Image from CDFG atlas
California
Precipitation
(data from PRISM)
California
Temperature
(data from PRISM)
(Mean estimated as average of mean
max and mean min)
Image from CDFG atlas
Biome’s we’ll see
Biomes we’ll visit: Fort Ord
Biomes we’ll visit: Ebbetts Pass
Biomes we’ll visit: Mono Camp
Biomes we’ll visit: Below Westgard Pass
Biomes we’ll visit: near Lone Pine
Biomes
we’ll visit:
Inyo
Mountains
Biomes we’ll visit: e.g. Calaveras