Vegetation

The vegetation is the totality of plant formations and plant communities that grow in an area. The vegetation is characterized by climate, soil, relief, rock, water balance and by the influences of fire, animals and humans. Those influenced by the overall climate vegetation formations are arranged on the earth in zonal vegetation zones ( mainly according to the climate zones). In small-scale studies is often spoken of a plant cover, in the scientific recording one speaks generally of vegetation surveys.

The related concepts flora and floral kingdom, however, does not refer to the plant formation, but on the totality of all plant taxa of an area.

In medicine is meant by the vegetation growth of bacteria, for example, heart valves with infective endocarditis. Vegetate The verb means " inactive " to live like a plant.

Vegetation types in botany

A distinction is made between different vegetation concepts:

The original natural vegetation

The original natural vegetation is which, because of rocks, climate models, organic finds and pollen analyzes, reconstructed vegetation that was formed before the appearance of people in an area. The original natural vegetation, however, was usually subjected to different climatic conditions than the present vegetation. Therefore, it does not match the reconstructed vegetation.

The real vegetation

The real vegetation is actually occurring vegetation. This is caused for example by agricultural and forestry influence. Replacement companies have this replaced the natural plant communities.

The potential natural vegetation

The potential natural vegetation refers to the final state of vegetation that would be expected without human intervention in the respective area. It is thus the basis of the current natural and anthropogenic changes in location factors, expected vegetation, if the human impact would be terminated. The potential natural vegetation is therefore not identical with that of vegetation, which one would expect if man had never intervened.

The concept of potential natural vegetation builds primarily on the concept of a final society of plants, the so-called climax vegetation on. This is called a long-term stable vegetation type that appeal to a growing area after a succession row, while the may change the location of the growth place setting. The climax vegetation itself is subject to very long periods of time a gradual change due to climatic, geological and floristic changes in a growing area (eg vegetation development in the Holocene ). An alternative approach to the climax vegetation is the mosaic - cycle concept.

The reconstructed natural vegetation

The reconstructed natural vegetation is the reconstructed vegetation that you would expect in an area when the man would never have appeared there. It takes into account, in contrast to the potential vegetation so no anthropogenic changes, but includes this by extrapolations. The reconstructed natural vegetation is relevant for the conservation and protection in the process of the wilderness concept.