New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Altitudinal patterns of vegetation, flora, life forms, and environments in the alpine zone of the Fiord Ecological Region, New Zealand

Alan F. Mark

Stefan Porter

Jeremy J. Piggott¹

Pascale Michel

Tanja Maegli²

Katharine J. M. Dickinson

Alpine Ecosystems Research Group
Botany Department
University of Otago
PO Box 56,
Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

¹Present address: Zoology Department, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand.

²Present address: Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand.

Abstract The altitudinal zonation patterns of vegetation structure, vascular flora, and life/growth forms were comprehensively assessed in relation to temperature and soil factors from treeline (1040 m) to the high-alpine summit of Mt Burns (1645 m) in south-eastern Fiord Ecological Region. We tested Körner’s hypothesis which stipulates that the physiognomic zonation pattern: treeline, shrubline, tussockline, and beyond, is driven mainly by increased decoupling between the ambient temperature and that experienced directly by plants in relation to proximity of their canopy to the ground. This hypothesis is generally supported, particularly with replacement of the tussock life form by dwarfed, mostly cushion species, at the low- to high-alpine zone transition. The soil pattern appears to be more of a response to, rather than a driver of, the alpine vegetation pattern, including a localised area of frost-active solifluction terraces. The Nothofagus menziesii treeline conformed to the “warmest month” model and also with a worldwide growing season mean (7.15°C) of 5.5–7.5°C. We stress the closer analogy in the overall alpine zonation pattern in this region of oceanic New Zealand to that of the tropical high mountains and other oceanic regions, than with the temperate Northern Hemisphere continental mountains.

Keywords alpine zonation; Fiordland; floristics; life forms; treeline; shrubline; tussockline; low alpine; high alpine; soils; solifluction terraces

B07046; Online publication date 6 June 2008; Received 26 October 2007; accepted 17 March 2008

New Zealand Journal of Botany, 2008, Vol. 46 : 205–237
0028–825X/08/4602–0205 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2008

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