Extrazonal vegetation

A typical extrazonal plant formation is the mountain coniferous forest of the montane altitude level in the temperate zone

As extrazonal vegetation is called plant formations (vegetation types), the nature of which is due to local climatic conditions (and it caused other site conditions ) clearly from the typical vegetation of the climate zone differs, in the considered formation occurs. It is in contrast to the zonal vegetation , which mostly runs roughly belt-shaped around the earth .

These include primarily the altitude levels of the mountains (from the collinate or montane level upwards), but also very large bodies of water and particularly favorable or unfavorable slopes. For example, on the south-facing slopes of southern Germany, downy oak or pedunculate oak forests in the Mediterranean region, or on the eastern slopes of eastern Germany that is shaded by the weather (e.g. Kyffhäuser ), dry vegetation in Eastern Europe.

If one looks not only at the plant world but also at the entire biological communities of a region (→ biomes ), the term orbiom (mountain biome ) is used in contrast to the zonobiom .

If non- climatic factors are responsible for the different species composition, one speaks of azonal vegetation .

See also

• Intrazonal vegetation
• Forest societies of Central Europe
• Geobotany

literature

• Heinz Ellenberg : Vegetation of Central Europe with the Alps from an ecological, dynamic and historical perspective. 5th, heavily changed and improved edition. Ulmer, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-8001-2696-6 .
• Georg Grabherr: Color Atlas of Earth's Ecosystems. Ulmer, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-8001-3489-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Richard Pott: General Geobotany. Biogeosystems and Biodiversity. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York 2005, ISBN 3-540-23058-0 . Pp. 281, 356.