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Vegetation Dynamics of Prairie Glacial Marshes

  • Chapter
The Population Structure of Vegetation

Part of the book series: Handbook of Vegetation Science ((HAVS,volume 3))

Abstract

All vegetation change can be reduced to one of three basic phenomena, succession, maturation, and fluctuation, or some combination of these. Each of these phenomena is a result of a change in some attribute of one or more of the plant populations comprising the vegetation of an area. Succession ocurs when different populations are present from time to time. Maturation is an increase in the biomass of an area which is the result of a change in the age/size structure of the populations with time. Fluctuations result from changes in the number of individuals or ramets in the populations of an area from year to year.

The contribution of succession, maturation, and fluctuation to the vegetation dynamics of Eagle Lake, a prairie glacial marsh in Iowa, is examined. In those areas where changing water levels and extensive musk-rat damage occur, succession is the most important phenomenon. A knowledge of the life-history characteristics of each species, particularly its establishment requirements, the presence or absence of its seeds in the seed bank, and its life-span, enables successional sequences to be predicted in this marsh. There are short periods where maturation is the major phenomenon causing vegetation change. Fluctuations also occur both in the emergent vegetation and the submerged vegetation.

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Authors
  1. A. G. van der Valk
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland

    J. White

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© 1985 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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van der Valk, A.G. (1985). Vegetation Dynamics of Prairie Glacial Marshes. In: White, J. (eds) The Population Structure of Vegetation. Handbook of Vegetation Science, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5500-4_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5500-4_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8927-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-5500-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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