Snowcover as a factor controlling the distribution and speciation of forest plants

✍ Scribed by Uemura, Shigeru

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 761 KB
• Volume: 82
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-5052
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00045026

✦ Synopsis

Effects of climatic factors on plant distribution in the Chubu District, central Japan, were examined with direct gradient analysis. The distribution of many species was controlled not only by temperature but also by snowfall. Sasa kurilensis, Heloniopsis orientalis and Tripterospermum japonicum preferred snow regardless of the thermal conditions. The snow seemed to exert more influence on endemics than on the more widespread plants, on evergreen plants more than on deciduous plants, and on trees or shrubs more than on herbs or climbing plants. Thus, the snow factor contributes to the high endemic ratio of central Japan. Among the snow-tolerant evergreen shrubs there were many neo-endemics derived from snowintolerant parent populations ofthe species which have restricted distributions in the laurel forests. They could occupy habitats in the summergreen forests, where their life form can withstand heavy snowfall.

Because of the heavy snowfall on the Sea of Japan side of central Japan in the postglacial period, evergreen coniferous trees have lost many of their previous habitats since most of them are intolerant of heavy snowfall.