Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Ecotone Dynamics in Space and Time

  • Chapter
Landscape Boundaries

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 92))

Abstract

The term ecotone recently has been redefined as the “zone of transition between adjacent ecological systems, having a set of characteristics uniquely defined by space and time scales, and by the strength of the interactions between adjacent ecological systems” (diCastri et al. 1988). Because in many cases the physiologically determined limits of species ranges occur within ecotones (Curtis 1959, Chabot and Mooney 1985), these transition zones may be sensitive to environmental changes (Gosz and Sharpe 1989); monitoring of ecotones therefore may provide a means of detecting, for example, immediate biotic responses to climatic changes caused by continued industrial release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere (Hansen et al. 1988). Ecotones may act as buffer zones between adjacent communities, serving as semipermeable barriers across which flow energy, nutrients, and propagules, or as landscape boundaries that potentially confer stability to adjacent communities (van der Maarel 1976, Wiens et al. 1985, Holland 1988). An understanding of the structure, function, and dynamics of ecotones is critical to developing objective criteria for measuring changes in attributes of ecotones that reflect environmental change.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Bernabo JC, Webb T III (1977) Changing patterns in the Holocene pollen record of northeastern North America: a mapped summary. Quat Research 8:64–96

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chabot BF, Mooney HA (eds). (1985) Physiological ecology of North American plant communities. Chapman and Hall, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Clampitt C (1985) DECORANA for IBM-PCs. Bioscience 35:738

    Google Scholar 

  • COHMAP (1988) Climatic changes of the last 18,000 years: observations and model simulations. Science 241:1043–1052

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Curtis JT (1959) The vegetation of Wisconsin: an ordination of plant communities. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis MB (1981) Quaternary history and the stability of forest communities. In West DC, Shugart HH Jr., Botkin DB (eds) Forest succession, concepts and application. Springer-Verlag, New York, pp 132–153

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis MB, Botkin DB (1985) Sensitivity of cool-temperate forests and their fossil pollen record to rapid temperature change. Quat Research 23:327–340

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt HR (1979) Late-Quaternary vegetation history of the eastern Highland Rim and adjacent Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. Ecol Monogr 49:255–280

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt HR, Delcourt PA (1985) Comparison of taxon calibrations, modern analogue techniques, and forest-stand simulation models for the quantitative reconstruction of past vegetation. Earth Surf Proc and Landforms 10:293–304

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt HR., Delcourt PA (1988) Quaternary landscape ecology: relevant scales in space and time. Landscape Ecol 2(l):23–44

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt HR, Delcourt PA, Webb T III (1983) Dynamic plant ecology: the spectrum of vegetational change in space and time. Quat Sci Rev 1:153–175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt PA, Delcourt HR (1981) Vegetation maps for eastern North America: 40,000 yr B.P. to the present. In Romans R (ed) Geobotany II. Plenum Press, News York, pp 123–166

    Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt PA, Delcourt HR (1983) Late-Quaternary vegetational dynamics and community stability reconsidered. Quat Research 19:265–271

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt PA, Delcourt HR (1984) Late-Quaternary paleoclimates and biotic responses across eastern North America and the northwestern Atlantic Ocean. Palaeogeog, Palaeoclim, Palaeoecol 48:263–284

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt PA, Delcourt HR (1987a) Late-Quaternary dynamics of temperate forests: applications of paleoecology to issues of global environmental change. Quat Sci Rev 6:129–146

    Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt PA, Delcourt HR (1987b) Long-term forest dynamics of the temperate zone: Ecological studies 63. Springer-Verlag, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Delcourt PA, Delcourt HR, Webb T III (1984) Atlas of mapped distributions of dominance and modern pollen percentages for important tree taxa of eastern North America. American Association of Stratigraphie Palynologists Contribution Series 14:1–131

    Google Scholar 

  • diCastri F, Hansen AJ, Holland MM (eds). (1988) A new look at ecotones, emerging international projects on landscape boundaries. Biol Intl (special issue) 17:1–163

    Google Scholar 

  • DiMichele WA, Phillips TL, Peppers RA (1985) The influence of climate and de-positional environment on the distribution and evolution of Pennsylvanian coal-swamp plants. In Tiffney BH (ed) Geological factors and the evolution of plants. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 223–256

    Google Scholar 

  • Forman RTT, Baudry J (1984) Hedgerows and hedgerow networks in landscape ecology. Environ Manage 8:495–510

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frakes LA (1979) Climates throughout geologic time. Elsevier Press, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Google Scholar 

  • Gauch H (1982) Multivariate analysis in community ecology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Gosz JR, Sharpe PJH (1989) Broad-scale concepts for interactions of climate, topography, and biota at biome transitions. Landscape Ecol 3:229–243

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grime JP (1979) Plant strategies and vegetation processes. Wiley, Chichester, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Hansen AJ, diCastri F, Naiman RJ (1988) Ecotones: what and why? Biol Intl. (special issue) 17:9–46

    Google Scholar 

  • Harcombe PA, Marks PL (1978) Tree diameter distributions and replacement processes in southern forests. Forest Sci 24:153–166

    Google Scholar 

  • Harper JL (1977) Population biology of plants. Academic Press, London, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Henry JD, Swan JMA (1974) Reconstructing forest history from live and dead plant material—an approach to the study of forest succession in southwest New Hampshire. Ecology 55:772–783

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill MO (1979) DECORANA—a FORTRAN program for detrended correspondence analysis and reciprocal averaging. Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbs ER (1986) Characterizing the boundary between California annual grassland and coastal sage scrub with differential profiles. Vegetatio 65:115–126

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holland MM (1988) SCOPE/MAB technical consultations on landscape boundaries. Biol Intl (special issue) 17:47–104

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntley B, Birks HJB (1983) An atlas of past and present pollen maps for Europe: 0–13,000 years ago. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson GL Jr, Grimm EC (1986) A numerical analysis of Holocene forest and prairie vegetation in central Minnesota. Ecology 67:958–966

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson GL Jr, Webb T III, Grimm EC (1987) Patterns and rates of vegetation change during the deglaciation of eastern North America. In Ruddiman WF, Wright HE Jr (eds) North America and adjacent oceans during the last deglaciation, geology of North America, v. K—3. Decade of North American Geology Series. Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, pp 277–288

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaland PE (1986) The origin and management of Norwegian coastal heaths as reflected by pollen analysis. In Behre K-E (ed) Anthropogenic indicators in pollen diagrams. AA Balkema, The Netherlands, pp 19–36

    Google Scholar 

  • Kutzbach JE (1987) Model simulations of the climatic patterns during the deglaciation of North America. In Ruddiman WF, Wright HE Jr (eds) North America and adjacent oceans during the last deglaciation, geology of North America, v. K—3. Decade of North American Geology Series, Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, pp 425–446

    Google Scholar 

  • Mueller-Dombois D (1985) ‘Ohi’a dieback and protection management of the Hawaiian rain forest. In Stone CP, Scott JM (eds) Hawaii’s terrestrial ecosystems: preservation and management. Cooperative National Park Resources Studies Unit, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, pp 403–421

    Google Scholar 

  • Neilson RP, Wullstein LH (1983) Biogeography of two southwest American oaks in relation to atmospheric dynamics. J Biogeography 10:275–297

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niklas KJ, Tiffney BH, Knoll AH (1985) Patterns in vascular land plant diversification: an analysis at the species level. In Valentine JW (ed) Phanerozoic diversity patterns, profiles in macroevolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, pp 97–128

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill RV, DeAngelis DL, Waide JB, Allen TFH (1986) A hierarchical concept of ecosystems: Monographs in Population Biology, vol. 23. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

    Google Scholar 

  • Peet RK, Christensen NL (1980) Succession: a population process. Vegetatio 43:131–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickett STA, White PS (eds) (1985) The ecology of natural disturbance and patch dynamics. Academic Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Raymond A, Parker WC, Barrett SF (1985) Early Devonian phytogeography. In Tiffney BH (ed) Geological factors and the evolution of plants. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, pp 129–167

    Google Scholar 

  • Ritchie JC (1987) Postglacial vegetation of Canada. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowe JS (1972) Forest regions of Canada. Canadian Forestry Service Publication 1300:1–172

    Google Scholar 

  • Solomon AM, Delcourt HR, West DC, Biasing TJ (1980) Testing a simulation model for reconstruction of prehistoric forest-stand dynamics. Quat Research 14:275–293

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stewart WN (1983) Paleobotany and the evolution of plants. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Urban DL, O’Neill RV, Shugart HH Jr (1987) Landscape ecology: a hierarchical perspective can help scientists understand spatial patterns. Bioscience 37:119–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van der Maarel, E. (1976) On the establishment of plant community boundaries. Berichte Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft Band 89:415–443

    Google Scholar 

  • Webb T III, Bartlein PJ, Kutzbach JE (1987) Climatic change in eastern North America during the past 18,000 years; comparisons of pollen data with model results. In Ruddiman WF, Wright HE Jr (eds) North America and adjacent oceans during the last deglaciation, geology of North America, v. K—3. Decade of North American Geology Series, Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado, pp 447–462

    Google Scholar 

  • Weins JA, Crawford CS, Gosz JR (1985) Boundary dynamics: a conceptual framework for studying landscape ecosystems. Oikos 45:421–427

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whittaker RH (1975) Communities and ecosystems. Macmillan, New York

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Paul A. Delcourt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Hazel R. Delcourt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA

    Andrew J. Hansen

  2. UNESCO, Place de Fontenoy, 75700, Paris, France

    Francesco di Castri (Coordinator for the Environment) (Coordinator for the Environment)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1992 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Delcourt, P.A., Delcourt, H.R. (1992). Ecotone Dynamics in Space and Time. In: Hansen, A.J., di Castri, F. (eds) Landscape Boundaries. Ecological Studies, vol 92. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2804-2_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2804-2_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7677-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-2804-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation