Soil and vegetation differences across ecological boundaries in an arid South African ecosystem
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aje.12612
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/aje.12612
- Boundaries are the most reactive nodes in landscapes and may be hypersensitive to global change in climate and land use.
- An MSc study by UCT student Rua Osman looked at the combination of soil and vegetation boundaries within Tankwa Karoo National Park along a altitudinal gradient
- She and her colleagues investigated the abruptness of four soil-vegetation boundaries separating eight communities and classified them as gradual, sharp or non-existent.
- Soil respiration and perhaps other ecosystem processes were mediated by the soil-vegetation boundaries.
- These nodes should be the focus of ecological studies since they reveal much more than the constituent patches themselves.
