Aquatic and Wetland Vegetation of the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

This work contains a comprehensive monograph on aquatic and wetland plant-community types on the Iberian Peninsula. This review covers aquatic and marsh vegetation in water bodies, and also includes vegetation of springs, mires and bogs, and ephemeral vegetation on exposed soils that are temporarily flooded. A total of 195 plant communities are floristically, ecologically and geographically defined. Iberian aquatic vegetation consists of free-floating plant communities; free-submerged plant communities even occasionally anchored to the bottom; and rooted plant communities. Within aquatic vegetation, batrachiid vegetation shows the highest richness in plant communities. Soft-water amphibious vegetation is composed of isoetid and other soft-water plants developed in high-mountain and lowland freshwater bodies. Iberian spring vegetation encompasses: plant communities growing in springs and spring-brooks in open habitats on base-poor or calcareous substrates; spring plant communities under forests; and aquatic spring vegetation. Iberian helophytic vegetation includes: tall reed-swamps of freshwater and brackish waters; tall sedge vegetation, within which a group of Ibero-Atlantic communities is identified; tall herb vegetation on alluvial soils; and water-margin vegetation dominated by low dicots or monocots. Mire and fen vegetation in the Iberian Peninsula comprises the following types: low sedge vegetation of transition mires, which includes an endemic group of communities from the Sierra Nevada; calcareous fens and flushes; lowland Atlantic mire vegetation; pioneer peat-moss vegetation on oligo-dystrophic soils; and pioneer basophilous communities in the alpine belt. Peat-forming vegetation of ombrotrophic mires and wet heaths is mostly restricted to the rainier northern and northwestern areas of the Iberian Peninsula. Ephemeral amphibious vegetation comprises the following groups in the Iberian Peninsula: Mediterranean isoetid vegetation; Mediterranean-Atlantic vegetation of dwarf pioneer plants; grass vegetation on slightly flooded substrates; Mediterranean calcicolous vegetation of pioneer plants, within which an endemic element can be seen; Mediterranean late-growth vegetation; and Western Mediterranean vegetation of low perennial herbs. Lastly, the vegetation of annual nitrophilous wetland herbs is widespread in Iberia but contains few plant-community types.