Larrea plant communities on bajada and moisture gradients in the USA and Argentina
Barbour MG and Diaz DV. 1973. Larrea plant communities on bajada and moisture gradients in the USA and Argentina. Vegetatio. 28(5-6):335-351
This research is part of a comparative study by the International Biological Program, of warm desert ecosystems in the State of AZ, and in the province of Catamarca, Argentina. Descriptions of the vegetation coupled with our own observations indicate strking parallelisms in physiognomy, flora, dominant genera, and plant xeromorphies in the two regions. These similarities prevail despite an 8000 km disjunction which has existed for tens of millions of years and despite some differences in geology, topography, and climate. The basic question asked by the IBP study is: Given similar but disjunct enviroments, and given some floristic similarities, has the process of evolution channelled the two ecosystems to a similar end point? Are the niches, and the organisms which fill them, similar? Our own part of this question is to determine whether the two dominants - Larrea divaricata Cav. in Arizona and L. cuneifolia Cav. in Catamarca - make similar contributions to community structure. In a plant community sense, are their niches similar?
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Barbour, M.; Diaz, D.
- Units
- CAGR , ORPI , SAGU , SODN , TONT
- Keywords
- argentina, Arizona, Botany (Morphology Anatomy Embryology Genetics), Ecology (Abiotic Effects), Ecology (Plant), Larrea, Moisture, USA