Abstract
Intensive studies of soil and vegetation were performed in Rivière-du-Loup County to identify various plant associations of meadows and pastures, describe the successional trends of each ecological habitat and establish a relationship between plant associations and various environmental factors. After vegetation survey and analysis, four plant associations and their successional trends were described. Each plant association was identified by the dominant species at the most advanced stage of secondary succession: (1) red fescue-bent grass association, (2) red fescue-Lindberg’s plume moss association, (3) bent grass–red fescue association, and (4) poverty grass–mouse-eared hawkweed association. All four plant associations were distributed in space according to the physiography and nature of the soils. Vegetation was highly influenced by age of sites. Young meadows and pastures were dominanted by timothy, red top, white clover and Canada bluegrass. Red fescue was very important on all 10 yr-old sites and remained so in all successional stages except in bent grass–red fescue and poverty grass–mouse-eared hawkweed associations. Vegetation changes with age depended on both ecological factors and land utilization. The results suggest that intensive soil studies and a rapid survey of vegetation would have provided results very similar to those obtained by a very detailed ecological study.
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