Vegetation ecology and classification in the Antarctic Zone

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Botany
• Main Author: Longton, R. E.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1979
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctic; Tundra
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/b79-273; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/b79-273

A review is presented of plant community ecology within the Antarctic Botanical Zone. The vegetation is formed largely of mosses, lichens, and algae but hepatics also occur and two native species of flowering plants are locally abundant. A hierarchical classification is outlined in which the vegetation is divided into two formations dominated, respectively, by flowering plants and by cryptogams. The antarctic nonvascular cryptogam tundra formation comprises eight physiognomically distinct subformations, while associations within subformations are recognized on the basis of constancy, and sociations within associations by cover of the dominant species. It is shown that the classification is applicable at a range of climatically diverse localities in the maritime and continental Antarctic regions. The position of the Antarctic communities in relation to worldwide and polar–alpine vegetation classification is briefly discussed.Low summer temperature is suggested as a major factor determining the essentially cryptogamic nature of Antarctic vegetation. Water availability and exposure appear to be of primary importance in controlling the distribution of the cryptogamic growth form types, both within localities in the vegetationally relatively diverse maritime Antarctic, and between the maritime and the more sparsely vegetated continental regions. With certain exceptions, there appear to be few successional relationships between the major vegetation types.