The ecology program's main objective is to describe the major plant communities within
the state of Alaska. Plant communities-also called plant associations-are assemblages
of species that respond similarly to environmental conditions such as climate, soil,
topography, geology, and hydrology. Communities are commonly identified by the
dominant and/or characteristic plant species.
Our program is part of a larger effort by other Heritage Programs and
NatureServe to develop a single consistent taxonomic vegetation classification for North America.
This classification includes all plant communities regardless of structure
(tree-, shrub-, or herbaceous-dominated) and successional status (early- to late-seral).
A wealth of community-level information has been collected in Alaska. Viereck et al.
(1992)*, in addition to developing the standard vegetation hierarchy for Alaska,
listed all the described community types for the State in their classification. The
Heritage program is adding to this list, and, where possible, crosswalking the
communities to avoid redundancy in types. By migrating the available community
information into a centralized database, the information will be made available to
address vegetation, soil, wildlife habitat, and ecosystem management issues.
* Viereck, L.A., C.T. Dyrness, A.R. Batten and K.J. Wenzlick. 1992. The Alaska
vegetation classification. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-286. Pacific Northwest Research
Station, U.S. Forest Service, Portland, OR. 278 p. |
