Plant Communities in the Jornada Basin: The Dynamic Landscape

Abstract

Plant communities of the Jornada Basin are characteristic of the northern Chihuahuan Desert both in structure and dynamics. Although a number of plant communities can be differentiated, five major vegetation types are often distinguished that differ in plant species cover and composition, as well as other factors, such as animal populations, soil properties, and elevation. These five types are black grama (Bouteloua eriopoda) grasslands, playa grasslands, tarbush (Flourensia cernua) shrublands, creosotebush (Larrea tridentata) shrublands, and mesquite (Prosopis grandulosa) shrublands. Similar to many other parts of the Chihuahuan Desert, these plant communities have experienced major shifts in vegetation composition over the past 50–150 years (York and Dick-Peddie 1969). The most dramatic changes in vegetation and associated ecosystem processes have occurred as a result of a shift in life form due to woody plant encroachment into perennial grasslands (Grover and Musick 1990; Bahre and Shelton 1993). This encroachment of shrubs has occurred in many arid and semiarid regions of the world, including the Western United States, northern Mexico, southern Africa, South America, New Zealand, and Australia (McPherson 1997; Scholes and Archer 1997). A number of drivers have been implicated in these grass–shrub dynamics, including various combinations of livestock grazing, small animal activity, drought, changes in fire regime, and changes in climate (Humphrey 1958; Archer 1989; Allred 1996; Reynolds et al. 1997; Van Auken 2000). The causes of shrub invasion are quite variable and often poorly understood, although the consequences consistently lead to the process of desertification (Schlesinger et al. 1990). This chapter describes the characteristics of each vegetation type and the documented changes in each type at the Jornada Basin. We then discuss the key drivers influencing these dynamics. Vegetation in the Chihuahuan Desert region has been classified as desert-grassland transition (Shreve 1917), desert savanna (Shantz and Zon 1924), desert plains grasslands (Clements 1920), desert shrub grassland (Darrow 1944), and shrubsteppe (Kuchler 1964). Desert grassland is often used as a general descriptive name for the area (McClaran 1995), although landscapes at the Jornada and throughout the northern Chihuahuan Desert often consist of a mosaic of desert grasslands, Chihuahuan Desert shrublands, and plains-mesa sand scrub (Dick-Peddie 1993).