Abstract
A method for studying the response of vegetation to environmental gradients, based on the community niche and fuzzy set theory, is presented. The approach is illustrated using an example from perennial halophilous vegetation along the Northern Adriatic coast of Italy. Compatibility curves are obtained by fuzzy set theoretical methods, and are used to model the response functions of plant associations to environmental gradients, including soil and ground water salinity, soil pH, soil and ground water temperature, percentage of sand, and variations in the ground water level. The compatibility curves summarize the similarity of a given plant community, with a particular value of an environmental variable, to the species combination of a given plant association. Compatibility curves offer an alternative approach to non-linear regression and best fit analyses normally used to model single species responses to environmental gradients. The approach is particularly useful given there is no single mechanistic model that can capture the exact shape of the functional response along environmental gradients, and given that environmental data are commonly affected by high levels of noise.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
Abbreviations
- ECs:
-
electric conductivity of soil
- ECw:
-
electric conductivity of the ground water
- PHs:
-
soil pH
- Ts:
-
soil temperature
- Tw:
-
ground water temperature
- Hw:
-
variation of the groundwater level
- Sand%:
-
percentage of sand in the soil
- Pucc.Halim:
-
Puccinellio festuciformis-Halimiomtum portulacoidis
- Pucc.Sarc:
-
Puccinellio festuciformis-Sarcocornietum fruticosae
- Pucc.Arth:
-
Puccimllio convolutae-Arthrocnemetum macrostachyi
- Arth.Halo:
-
Arthrocnemo macrostachyi-Halocnemetum strobilacei.
References
Allen, T.F.H. and T.B. Starr. 1982. Hierarchy: Perspectives for Ecological Complexities. The University Chicago Press, Chicago, London.
Andreucci, F., Biondi, E. and V. Zuccarello. 1999. La vegetazione alofila della Sacca di Bellocchio. Supplemente al Bollettino del Museo civico di Storia Naturale di Venezia 49: 143–168.
Austin, M.P. 1976. On non-linear species response models in ordination. Vegetatio 33: 33–41.
Austin, M.P. 1987. Models for the analysis of species response to environmental gradients. Vegetatio 69: 35–45.
Austin, M.P. 1990. Community theory and competition in vegetation. In: Grace J.B. and D. Tilman (eds.), Prespectives on Plant Competition. Academic Press, New York. pp. 215–235.
Bezdek, J.C. 1981. Pattern Recognition with Fuzzy Objective Function Algorithms. Plenum Press, New York.
Bio, A.M.F., Alkemade, R. and A. Barendregt. 1998. Determining alternative models for vegetation response analysis: a non-parametric approach. J. Veg. Sci. 9: 5–16.
Biondi, E. 1992. The vegetation of sedimentary low coasts in Corfu island. Coll. Phytosoc. 19: 401–427.
Biondi, E. and M. Baldoni. 1994. Sul fitoclima della penisola italiana. Giorn. Bot. Ital. 128(1): 461.
Biondi, E. and M. Baldoni. 1995. A possible metod for geographic delimitation of phytoclimatic type: with application to the phytoclimate of the Marche region of Italy. Doc. Phytosoc. 15: 15–28.
Bosserman, R.W. and R.K. Ragade. 1982. Ecosystem analysis using fuzzy set theory. Ecological Modelling 16: 191–208.
Braun-Blanquet, J. 1964. Pflanzensoziologie. Grundzuge der Vegetationskunde. 3. Aufl. Springer, Wien.
Brzezieki B., Kienast, F. F. and O. Wildi. 1993. A simulated map of the potential natural forest vegetation of Switzerland. J. Veg. Sci 4: 499–508.
Corbetta, F. 1976. Lineamenti vegetazionali della Sacca di Bellocchio (Foce del Reno). Ricerche di Biologia della Selvaggina 7 (Suppl. Scritti in memoria di Augusto Toschi): 247–270.
Cox, E. 1994. The Fuzzy Systems Handbook. Academic Press Inc., London.
Dubois, D. and H. Prade. 1987. Théorie des Possibilités. Masson, Paris.
Dubois, D. and H. Prade. 1994. Similarity-based approximate reasoning. In: Zurada, J.M., R. J. Marks and C.J. Robinson (eds.), Computational Intelligence Imitating Life, IEEE Press, New York.
Egziabher T., E. Feoli, M. Fernetti, G. Oriolo and Z. Woldu. 1998. Vegetation mapping by integration of floristic analysis, GIS and remote sensing. An example from Tigray (Ethiopia). Plant Bio-systems 132: 39–51.
Feoli, E. 1984. Some aspects of classification and ordination of vegetation data in perspective. Studia Geobotanica 4: 7–21.
Feoli, E. 1998. Exploring multidimensional space in vegetation science. In: E. Kazmierczak, A. Nienartowicz, A. Piernik and J. Wilkon-Michalska (eds.), Computer Methods in Investigation of the Structure and Functioning the Vegetation Cover. Wydaw, Uniw. Mikolaja Kopernika, Torun. pp. 143–156.
Feoli, E., P. Ganis and Z. Woldu. 1988. Community niche, an effective concept to measure diversity of gradients and hyperspaces. Coenoses 3: 79–82.
Feoli, E., M. Lagonegro and L. Orlóci. 1984. Information Analysis of Vegetation Data. Dr. W. Junk, The Hague.
Feoli, E. and V. Zuccarello. 1986. Ordination based on classification: yet another solution? Abstracta Botanica 10: 203–219.
Feoli, E. and V. Zuccarello. 1988. Syntaxonomy: a source of useful fuzzy sets for environmental analysis? Coenoses 3: 141–147.
Feoli, E. and V. Zuccarello. 1992. Fuzzy sets and structural changes in forest succession: an example from broad leaved forests of N.E. Italy. Coenoses 7: 81–90.
Fulton, MR. 1996. An application of fuzzy set ordination to determine tree habitat suitability of sites from a regional data set. J. Veg. Sci. 7: 739–746.
Greig-Smith, P. 1983. Quantitative Plant Ecology. 3rd ed. Blackwell, Oxford.
Mucina, L. 1997. Classification of vegetation: Past, present and future. J. Veg. Sei. 8: 751–760.
Mucina, L. and M.B. Dale (eds). 1989. Numerical Syntaxonomy. Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Mueller-Dombois, D. and H. Ellenberg. 1974. Aims and Methos of Vegetation Ecology. Wiley, New York.
Oksanen, J. 1997. Why the beta-function cannot be used to estimate skewness of species responses. J. Veg. Sci. 8: 147–152.
Orlóci, L. 1991a. Statistics in ecosystem survey: computer support for process-based sample stability tests and entropy/information inference. In: Feoli, E. and L. Orlóci (eds.), Computer Assisted Vegetation Analysis. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 47–57.
Orlóci, L. 1991b. Poorean approximation and Fisherian inference in bioenvironmental analysis. Advances in Ecology 1: 65–71.
Orlóci, L. and V. De Patta Pillar. 1991. On sample size optimality in ecosystem survey. In: E. Feoli and L. Orlóci (eds). Computer Assisted Vegetation Analysis. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 41–46.
Piccoli, F. 1995. Elementi per una carta della vegetazione del Parco del Delta del Po(Regione Emilia-Romagna). Fitosociologia 30: 213–219.
Pirola, A. 1959. Flora e vegetazione periglaciale sul versante méridionale del Bernina. Flora et Vegetatio Italica 1: 1–115. Gianasso, Milano.
Raabe, E. W. 1952. Über der “Affinitatswert” in der Pflanzensoziologie. Vegetatio 4: 53–68.
Rivas-Martinez, S. 1994. Clasificacion bioclimatica de la tierra. Folia Botanica Madritensis 11:1–20.
Rivas-Martinez, S. 1995. Clasificacion bioclimatica de la tierra. Folia Botanica Matritensis 16: 1–25.
ter Braak, C.J.F. and I.C. Prentice. 1988. A theory of gradient analysis. Adv. Ecol. Res. 18:271–317.
van der Maarel, E. 1981. Some perspectives of numerical methods in syntaxonomy. In: H. Dierschke (ed.), Syntaxonomie. J. Cramer, Vaduz, pp 77–93.
Walter, H. 1979. Vegetation of the Earth and Ecological Systems of Geo-biosphere. 2nd ed. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Westhoff, V and E. van der Maarel. 1978. The Braun-Blanquet approach. In: R. H. Whittaker (ed.), Classification of Plant Communities. 2nd ed. Junk, The Hague. pp. 287–399.
Whittaker, R.H. 1967. Gradient analysis of vegetation. Biol. Rev. 42: 207–264.
Whittaker, R.H. 1975. Communities and Ecosystems. Second Edition. Macmillan Publishing, New York.
Whittaker, R.H. 1978. Direct gradient analysis. In: R. H. Whittaker (ed.), Ordination of plant communities. Junk, The Hague. pp. 7–50.
Zadeh, L.A. 1965. Fuzzy sets. Inform. Control 8: 338–353.
Zimmerman, H. 1996. Fuzzy Set Theory and its Application. 3rd edition. Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Zuccarello, V., Allegrezza, M., Biondi, E. and R. Calandra. 1999. Valenza ecologica di specie ed associazioni prative e modelli di distribuzione lungo gradienti sulla base della teoria degli insiemi sfocati (Fuzzy Set Theory). Braun-Blanquetia 16: 121–226.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
About this article
Cite this article
Andreucci, F., Biondi, E., Feoli, E. et al. Modeling environmental responses of plant associations by fuzzy set theory. COMMUNITY ECOLOGY 1, 73–80 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1556/ComEc.1.2000.1.10
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1556/ComEc.1.2000.1.10