Riparian and Wetland Plant Community Types of the Shoshone National Forest

摘要

This classification of riparian and wetland plant communities in the Shoshone National Forest was a cooperative project between The Wyoming Natural Diversity (WYNDD) of the Nature Conservancy and the USDA Forest Service. The goal of this project is to identify groups of plant species that commonly occur together in particular environmental settings. Each such groups of species, or plant community type, is identified by the structure of the vegetation and by the species contributing the most canopy cover. Hence our classification identifies physiognomic types based on the amounts of trees, tall shrubs, and herbaceous plants; and dominance types within each physiognomic type. We have sought to identify and name as community types those combinations of species that occur repeatedly, as shown by our stand data or by information from other studies elsewhere; we have tried to avoid naming every unique combination of species as a community type. We use the term 'community type' in broad sense to mean both seral or successional vegetation types and potential or climax vegetation types.