Abstract
Differential profiles are used to describe a pattern of vegetation change across the boundary between annual grassland and coastal sage scrub in southern California. Several techniques for deriving differential profiles are compared; profiles derived from multivariate ordination are found to be most informative. Quantitative description of the vegetation boundaries by differential profiles permitted their classification into two categories of abrupt boundaries and three categories of gradual transitions. Differences between these boundary types appear to be the result of differences in soil texture and compaction, degree of disturbance, and spatial distribution of disturbance.
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Nomenclature follows Munz (1974) and Raven & Thompson (1977).
I am grateful to many people for their assistance in this study. I appreciate the help and cooperation of The California Department of Parks and Recreation and Dr. Carey Stanton who permitted access to the study sites. L. Band and L. Scuderi wrote the moving weighted averages program. The program GROWTHFORM was developed by G. Sayre, A. Troeger, and W. Westman. The research was supported in part by The Nature Conservancy (Santa Cruz Island Project); Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society; The Society of Woman Geographers; and The University of California, Los Angeles (Research Opportunity Fund and Chancellor's Patent Fund). Jonathan Sauer and Walter Westman provided invaluable guidance and criticism.
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Hobbs, E.R. Characterizing the boundary between California annual grassland and coastal sage scrub with differential profiles. Vegetatio 65, 115–126 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00044882
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00044882