L’importance de la continentalité hydrique dans les montagnes méditerranéennes : l’exemple du Maroc et de la Californie / The importance of rainfall continentality in the Mediterranean mountains: the example of Morocco and California

Abstract

In ecophysiology, bioclimatology and global change studies water stress has been generally quantified, during the growing season, in particular in Mediterranean climate. However, early research conducted in the Alps has shown the importance of rainfall continentality and, thus, of winter rainfall for plant species distribution. In this study, we first present in introduction the importance of rainfall continentality for vegetation distribution in Mediterranean climate, through the example of Northern Morocco. We, then, present the results of a bioclimatic study conducted on the eleven states of western USA, in which we used Canonical Correspondence Analysis to analyse the correlations existing between 500 vegetation plots and four climatic variables, the average minimum temperature of the coldest month, the length of the growing season, the rainfall continentality quantified using the Gams (1932) winter index and the summer water deficit. The main results showed the overwhelming importance of rainfall continentality and cold stress, before the length of the growing season and the summer water deficit. This study highlights the importance to distinguish in Mediterranean climate, rainfall continentality from summer water deficit, if we want to improve our predictions of changes in plant species distribution with climate change.