permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflondon@mindspring.com>]

On Thu, 08 Nov 2001 11:58:31 -0600, mIEKAL aND <dtv@mwt.net> wrote:

>
>>
>> uhm, maybe claude thought, that it might be helpful for setting it up, to
>> see how his structure was done?
>>
>> all the best
>> georg
>
>that, of course, is a very useful consideration.  Ive been scanning all 
>kinds of
>plant data-bases & everyone is different, each one with its own 
>considerations.  Im
>also very interested in what nick r mentioned about having a set of fields 
>related to
>guilds....  if someone could post a text based example of the kind of 
>information
>that would be relevant for designing guilds, that would be helpful.  I 
>personally
>work more with a. kapuler's concepts of kinship gardening more than the 
>guild idea,
>so Im not real familiar with it.


Here's something that Ute posted in 1999 that is a useful example of
guilds as alliances:

<>

On Mon, 05 Nov 2001 13:16:38 +0000, in alt.permaculture Ute Bohnsack
<sustag@eircom.net> wrote:

Reposting from pc mailing list upon request (originally sent August
1999)


Botanists and ecologists in Central Europe and in many other countries
would be
familiar with phytosociology which defines plant assemblages on the
basis of
their floristic composition (plant communities). Phytosociological
methodology
was pioneered by J. Braun-Blanquet in the middle of this century.
The fundamental abstract unit in the hierarchical classification used
in this
approach is the statistically defined *association*. Associations are
grouped
together successively into alliances, orders and classes. Sometimes
formations
are used as the highest syntaxonomic level. The taxa (units) are named
in Latin
ending on  ~etea (class), ~etalia (order), ~ion (alliance) and (with
few
exceptions) ~etum (association).

An example for such a hierarchie:

Formation: Vegetation composed chiefly of shrubs and bushes

Class: Thornbush class (Rhamno-Prunetea)

Order: Prunetalia spinosae (Character species include i.a. Prunus
spinosa,
Crateagus monogyna, Rhamnus catharticus, Euonymus europeaus, Cornus
sanguinea.......)

Alliance: Rubion subatlanticum (Diagnostic species: Rubus spp., Sedum
telephium)

Association: Primulo-Crataegum (Diagnostic species group: Crataegus
monogyna, C.
laevigata, Rubus spp., Prunus spinosa, Rosa canina, Rhamnus
cathartica,
Ligustrum vulgare)

Obviously there are other classes, orders, alliances and associations
within
this formation and there are many more formations.

The details as to how these taxa and their suites of character
species,
differential species and diagnostic species are arrived at would fill
a book,
but maybe this explains why there are so many terms floating around.
Also, while
this approach is widely used, it is not universal. Great Britain, for
example,
has its own system and in the US maybe other appoaches are used again.

Applied phytosociology is an excellent tool for the field ecologist
and has many
uses in conservation management. Since it does not only deal with
natural
vegetation but also with e.g. forest or agro-ecosystems the
understanding of
which species are likely to occur together under given circumstances
combined
with a knowledge of successional development of vegetation can be a
useful tool
for designing plant communities in PC systems much as in the way
described by
Toby [Hemenway].

My 2 cents worth.

Ute


L.F.London ICQ#27930345 lflondon@mindspring.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech  london@ibiblio.org