An ecotone arrea series#

The design of the sloping grounds interprets the agricultural know-how of shaping the earth to control the water drainage and re-uses the excavated material coming from the new side-buildings construction to build the hills. In the Southern part, the nearly 6000 m2 existing wetlands were kept, being a rare example of an ecotone area in an anthropised environment. Over 250 trees and 4 ha of meadows were planted, having different features: central clearings available as highly frequented areas and wildflowers meadows having a low maintenance cost on the embankments.

University Publishing Company, Lincoln, NE.The plan started from an analysis of the state of facts, having the purpose to find out the signs and the relationships that could become the first steps towards the layout to preserve, as far as possible, the existing water structure, through maintaining the agricultural ditches and plants.

An ecotone arrea series#

It is obvious that an ecotone separates two different series of zones in the one case, and merely two distinct zones in the other.”Ĭlements, F.E. Ecotones are well-marked between formations, particularly where the medium changes they are less distinct within formations. “The line that connects the points of accumulated or abrupt change in the symmetry is a stress line or ecotone. The Distribution of the Upland Plant Societies of Kent County, Michigan. “Along a wavy east and west line passing through Rockford lies the “zone of tension” between societies I, II, and III on the one hand, and IV and V on the other…It may be that the climate, somewhat colder as we pass northward, has acted as a retarding factor, assisted by the fact that a good portion of these northern townships have a light surface soil, which seems unsuited for the hard wood societies in the absence of humus.” Heidi Swanson, ESA’s public information manager, edits Ecotone. We welcome guest submissions of timely relevant news of importance to the broad ecological community. The term refers to the transition from one ecosystem to another, as well the stress inherent in a population at the limit of its tolerance for specific environmental conditions.īurton Edward Livingston 1 and Frederic Clements 2 described the ecotone concept in the first decade of the twentieth century, when ecology was coalescing as a field of study. Credit, Jesse Allen, Robert Simmon, and Tassia Owen, the NASA Earth Observatory.Įcotones occur at edges and physical boundaries, where fresh water meets salt water and water meets land, where tides roll up and down coasts, where woodlands become pastures and the fir trees of taiga forests give way to the lichen and grass of tundra. Greens and browns brightly demarcate the ecosystem transition, or ecotone, in this image acquired by the USGS Landsat 5 satellite on. Dry air sliding down the eastern, leeward slopes heats as it compresses in the higher pressure at lower altitudes. As the air rises, it cools, and releases its moisture as rain and snow. Warm Chinook winds blow wet air off the Pacific Ocean eastward up the the western flank of the mountains. The peaks of the Cascade mountain range cast a rain shadow over eastern Oregon, instigating a harsh change from the wet, evergreen forests of the west to the dry, sparse, high desert of the east.