Comparative studies on structure and stability of tropical and ectropical plant communities in relation to site characteristics

Auteur :
FRANZLE, O.

Description :
Comparative ecological analyses of the species diversity of old tropical rain forest ecosystems show that their biocenoses are the more likely to have both low fluctuations and low resilience the more homogeneous the environment in space and time is. The entropy of the impoverished mature soils of the ferralsol, acrisol, and podzol groups is high in terms of low content and equal distribution of nutrients| consequently the net entropy rates of the vegetation cover must be proportionally low in order to maintain stability of the total ecosystem in the most efficient way. A corresponding and complementary analysis of plant associations in the U.S.A. and Germany permits to develop a generalized model of phytocenoses as stationary dissipative structures combining the evolutionary trends of species diversity, pedogenic nutrient supply, system stability and resilience in a non-linear time scale.


Type de document :
Article de périodique

Source :
Tropical ecology Varanasi, 1982, vol. 23, n°. 1, p. 51-63

Date :
1982