Faculty of SITE Northern Territory University Flora & Fauna Survey Techniques
   
what is flora and fauna survey?
why survey?
factors to consider
preparing to sample
flora survey techniques
vegetation descriptions
sampling concepts
fauna survey techniques
analysing data
presenting data
 

Vegetation descriptions


Physiognomy
Physiognomy is a combination of structural and functional characteristics. This is favoured for small-scale (large area) studies (e.g. habitat descriptions for scientists from other disciplines, such as animal ecologists).

Important physiognomic concepts include

1. Life form
This refers to whether the dominant plants are trees, shrubs, hummock grasses, tussock grasses, sedges or herbs. One of the first methods was that of Raunkiaer (1934) who described life form as position of the perennating bud of a plant with respect to the ground surface. Description by life form is particularly useful in the tropics where floristic richness, structural complexity and the paucity of up-to-date published floras make the preliminary description of the vegetation extremely difficult.

2. Phenology
Phenology is the description of the life-cycle and growth phases of individuals (e.g. budding, flowering, setting seed, vegetative flushing, leafless).

3. Stratification or structure
In this context, stratification refers to the horizontal (spatial distribution) and vertical (height) layering of vegetation components. This can also be described for the root zone. (Note: The term stratification is also used in the context of sampling design, where it refers to the placement of samples in strata within the sampling area.)

Many common terms for vegetation are physiognomic descriptions (e.g. forest, savanna, grassland, woodland). However, these are also abstract terms, or vegetation types.

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last updated by lrp@cdu.edu.au 6 August, 2004
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