Forest Vegetation Classification of Taiwan: an Analysis of the National Vegetation Database
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | 52nd Symposium of the International Association for Vegetation Science |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | webove stranky konference |
| Description | Phytosociology is important for understanding community structure and in a range of applications in biodiversity conservation. In order to obtain a standard vegetation classification of Taiwan forests, we classified the relevés from the Taiwan National Vegetation Database into groups with ecological meaning and similar floristic composition and described each group by the species character data. 6390 relevés were selected with 866 woody species for this study. Cluster analysis revealed 18 forest vegetation types. Ten of them are zonal vegetation types, which are influenced by the climatic factors associated with the altitudinal and latitudinal gradients. Among them two belong to the subalpine zone, three to the temperate zone (also named cloud zone in Taiwan), two to the subtropical zone and three to the tropical zone. Another eight forest vegetation types are azonal, confined to special habitats such as disturbed landslides, rock outcrops, saline soils and areas affected by the north-eastern monsoon. We attached each species with their character data such as family, leaf type, forest layer and biogeographical distribution type. Pinaceae and Cupressaceae are dominant family in the subalpine zone, Fagaceae and Lauraceae in the temperate and subtropical zone while Lauraceae and Moraceae in the tropical zone. Species dominating in azonal types belong to Pinaceae, Betulaceae, Urticaceae, Euphorbiaceae, Leguminosae, Fagaceae Lauraceae and Goodeniaceae. Concerning leaf types, coniferous species are dominant in the subalpine zone and deciduous species are more important in the azonal vegetation types, while evergreen broad-leaved species dominate elsewhere. Close to the valley bottoms the proportion of herb layer species is higher, while on the upper slopes and ridges the shrub layer is more developed. Epiphyte cover is higher in temperate and subtropical forests and climbers are common especially in subtropical and tropical forests. Endemic species have high cover at high elevations and lowest cover in coastal forests, but the highest number of endemic species is in the cloud forests, which are found at the temperate zone. Lowland forests contain more naturalized (including invasive) species. The subtropical zone has more Himalayan or Pacific species. Tropical forests and early successional forests contain more widespread species. |
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