BEC Flashcards
What is the concept of BEC?
Mature vegetation communities reflect sum of the environment
How is classification used?
Government
- strategies, priorities, standards
- resource inventory
- understanding future trends
Industry
- where to plant specific tree species
- future timber supply
- Planning for non timber values
- development plan approval
How are ecosystems classified?
Vegetation + Site/soils
What are the primary factors in ecosystem classification?
Climate and soil nutrients/moisture
What does classification describe?
The potential of the site
What is site series?
What are site associations?
Site series: When BEC variant and the description of the vegetation match
Site associations are general and can occur over multiple BEC units
What does relative soil moisture refer to?
The soils moisture relative to the range within the variant that you are in.
What is ecological equivalence?
When two different sites exhibit the same vegetation due to equalizing factors, for example Coarse textured soils on a lower slope could lead to the same moisture regime as medium textured soil on a mid slope.
How are BGC zones classified
Zone
Subzone
Variant
How are zones defined?
-Climax tree species
How are subzones defined?
Precipitation regime + Temperature regime(interior)/ Continentality (interior)
sometimes a third letter is added to distinguish woodland/parkland or both
What does maritime refer to?
how much marine influence there is on the unit
Hypermaritime is the most
Maritime is the second
Submaritime is the transition between coast and interior (least affected)
How are sites classified?
Site series and site associations
How are variants classified?
By number
01-zonal site
02-driest variant
13-wettest
How do foresters use BEC zones, subzones and variants?
- Seed zones
- Forest pest risk
- Natural disturbance types
- Wildlife habitat management
- Planning for reserves
