T3.3 Cool temperate heathlands

Biome: T3. Shrublands and shrubby woodlands biome

Contributors:
(texts)

In cool temperate, humid, maritime environments, a dense cover of low shrubs with small tough leaves is interspersed with grasses and ferns. Cold temperatures and low-fertility acid soils limit productivity, with wet subsoils limiting decomposition so that organic matter accumulates. Low intensity fires may occur in the warmer months. Browsing mammals, such as rabbits and deer, bring nutrients from more productive systems and maintain the shrubby composition. Canids and raptors are common predators of ground-nesting birds and rodents, in a relatively simple foodweb.

Key Features

Low-diversity, low productivity mixed graminoid ericoid shrublands of maratime environments, supporting mammalian browsers.

Overview of distribution

Boreal and cool temperate coasts, North America, Europe, Magellenic South America.

Profile versions

• v1.0 (2020-01-20): DA Keith; F Essl; NA Brummitt
• v2.0 (2020-07-03): DA Keith; F Essl; NA Brummitt; J Loidi
• v2.01 ():
• v2.1 (2022-04-06): DA Keith; F Essl; NA Brummitt; J Loidi Full profile available at official site

Main references

Selected references for this functional group:

• Aerts R, Heil GW (1993) Heathlands: patterns and processes in a changing environment Kluwer Academic Publishing

• Loidi J, Biurrun I, Juan Antonio Campos JA, García-Mijangos I, Herrera M (2010) A biogeographical analysis of the European Atlantic lowland heathlands Journal of Vegetation Science 21(5): 832–842 DOI:10.1111/j.1654-1103.2010.01204.x

• Watt AS (1947) Pattern and process in the plant community Journal of Ecology 35, 1-22.

Diagrammatic assembly model

Diagrammatic assembly model of T3.3 Cool temperate heathlands. See general notes on diagrams. Open image full size.

Maps

Maps are indicative of global distribution patterns are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. The maps show areas of the world containing major (coloured red) or minor occurrences (coloured yellow) of each ecosystem functional group. See general notes on maps.

There are 2 alternative versions of the indicative map for this functional group, please compare description and sources below.

T3.3.IM.alt_v4.0

Datasets

• Landcover-North-America-2016
• Ecoregions-North-America-1997
• EarthEnv-LandCover-v1.0
• Resolve-Ecoregions-2017
• Pisos-Vegetacion-Chile-2006

Map references

• Latifovic, R., Homer, C., Ressl, R., Pouliot, D., Hossain, S.N., Colditz, R.R., Olthof, I., Giri, C., Victoria, A. (2016) North American land change monitoring system Remote Sensing of Land Use and Land Cover: Principles and Applications Giri, C. (Ed). CRC-Press, pp. 303-324 DOI:10.1201/b11964

• Commission for Environmental Cooperation (1997) Ecological Regions of North America – Toward a Common Perspective Montréal, Québec, Canada; 1997. PDF

• Tuanmu, M.-N. and W. Jetz (2014) A global 1-km consensus land-cover product for biodiversity and ecosystem modeling Global Ecology and Biogeography 23(9):1031–1045 DOI:10.1111/geb.12182

• Dinerstein E, Olson D, Joshi A, Vynne C, Burgess ND, Wikramanayake E, Hahn N, Palminteri S, Hedao P, Noss R, Hansen M, Locke H, Ellis EE, Jones B, Barber CV, Hayes R, Kormos C, Martin V, Crist E, Sechrest W, Price L, Baillie JEM, Weeden D, Suckling K, Davis C, Sizer N, Moore R, Thau D, Birch T, Potapov P, Turubanova S, Tyukavina A, de Souza N, Pintea L, Brito JC, Llewellyn Barnekow Lillesø JP, van Breugel P, Graudal L, Voge M, Al-Shammari KF, Saleem M (2017) An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience 67: 534–545. DOI:10.1093/biosci/bix014. Data-set available on-line

• Luebert, F. and Pliscoff, P. (2006) Sinopsis bioclimática y vegetacional de Chile. Editorial Universitaria. Santiago de Chile.

T3.3.web.alt_v4.0

Major and minor occurrences were identified using consensus land-cover maps (Tuanmu et al. 2014; Latifovic et al. 2016), then cropped to selected terrestrial ecoregions at 30 arc seconds spatial resolution (Dinerstein et al. 2017; CEC 1997). Ecoregions were selected if they contained areas mentioned or mapped in published regional studies (Loidi et al. 2015; Luebert & Pliscoff 2017), or if: i) their descriptions mentioned features consistent with those identified in the profile of the Ecosystem Functional Group; and ii) if their location was consistent with the ecological drivers described in the profile. Open image full size.

Datasets

• Ecoregions-North-America-1997
• Landcover-North-America-2016
• Resolve-Ecoregions-2017
• EarthEnv-LandCover-v1.0

Map references

• Commission for Environmental Cooperation (1997) Ecological Regions of North America – Toward a Common Perspective Montréal, Québec, Canada; 1997. PDF

• Latifovic, R., Homer, C., Ressl, R., Pouliot, D., Hossain, S.N., Colditz, R.R., Olthof, I., Giri, C., Victoria, A. (2016) North American land change monitoring system Remote Sensing of Land Use and Land Cover: Principles and Applications Giri, C. (Ed). CRC-Press, pp. 303-324 DOI:10.1201/b11964

• Dinerstein E, Olson D, Joshi A, Vynne C, Burgess ND, Wikramanayake E, Hahn N, Palminteri S, Hedao P, Noss R, Hansen M, Locke H, Ellis EE, Jones B, Barber CV, Hayes R, Kormos C, Martin V, Crist E, Sechrest W, Price L, Baillie JEM, Weeden D, Suckling K, Davis C, Sizer N, Moore R, Thau D, Birch T, Potapov P, Turubanova S, Tyukavina A, de Souza N, Pintea L, Brito JC, Llewellyn Barnekow Lillesø JP, van Breugel P, Graudal L, Voge M, Al-Shammari KF, Saleem M (2017) An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience 67: 534–545. DOI:10.1093/biosci/bix014. Data-set available on-line

• Tuanmu, M.-N. and W. Jetz (2014) A global 1-km consensus land-cover product for biodiversity and ecosystem modeling Global Ecology and Biogeography 23(9):1031–1045 DOI:10.1111/geb.12182

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