Soil-plant relations along a soil-water gradient in great basin riparian meadows

Abstract

Abstract Throughout the western states, riparian ecosystems have been affected by water diversions or spring and seep developments that decrease the quantity of instream flows and result in lowered water-tables. Water extraction is especially damaging in arid and semi-arid regions where the presence of instream and ground-water flows are crucial to riparian vegetation. We examined the temporal and spatial relationships between hydrologic gradients, vegetation, and soils in two central Nevada riparian meadows in order to identify plant species and environmental variables that can serve as indicators of water-table status. Species frequency and aerial cover, ground-cover composition, depth to water-table, and soil morphological and physical properties were measured along hydrologic gradients within two riparian meadow complexes. TWINSPAN, cluster, and multivariate discriminant analyses classified the vegetation into four ecosystem types. These occurred along the hydrologic gradient and included, from wettes...