Mediterranean ecosystems

Distribution
Climate
Soils
Vegetation types
Ecophysiology
Fire ecology
The “Ruined Landscape” hypothesis
Mediterranean landscape I
Mediterranean landscape II
Mediterranean and mediterraneoid
ecosystems

Only 2% of land area but ~20% of plant species;

30° - 35° latitude; west side of continents
Plant communities,
El Torcal, Andalucia,
Spain
(photos: Ian Hutchinson,
June, 2007)
 Mean ann. range (°C) 10° 16° 19°
Mediterranean climates
July

H H

H H H
Mediterranean climates

H
January

H
H

H
H
 Mediterranean Basin precipitation

Feb.

July

mm/day

Source: CLIVAR Africa

Mediterranean soils
(terra rossa)
A Thin mull humus forming
in eroded remains of
Bt horizon
Btf Illuvial horizon enriched with
clay and iron, has become
red-coloured. High clay
content renders them
relatively impermeable and
prone to erosion

C Parent material (commonly

calcareous) but in this case
composed of Palaeozoic
shales
 Mediterranean Basin ecosystems
Type Weeks Soil Vegetation
of drought
Humid <6 Alfi/Luvisols beech-deciduous
oak-pine

Subhumid 6-10 Nitosols evergreen oak

* - pine

Semiarid 10-25 Non-calcic desert grasslands

browns

Arid >25 Aridisols desert

 Elevation - vegetation relations
Elev. (e.g. southern Italy)
(m)

beech -
oak forest
sub-Mediterranean
1500
(=humid)
deciduous oak
- pine forest
800
evergreen oak - pine Mediterranean
woodland (=subhumid)
400
semiarid grassland - Mediterranean
macchia (=semiarid)
0
Montane pine forest,
central Corsica
Evergreen oak forest,
Mt Athos, N. Greece

A monastic “templos” for over 1000 years

Vegetation - climate
relations, California
Vegetation - topography
relations, California
N-facing
S-facing
Common plants of the chaparral

2
3
1 1. Adenostoma
fasciculatum
2. Heteromeles
arbutifolia
3. Ceanothus verrucosus
4. Quercus dumosa
5. Cneroridium dumosum

5 Dumos = ‘a bramble’
4
 Chaparral/maquis plants
Common features:
• microphylly (=small leaves)
• sclerophylly (= hard “leathery”
leaves with waxy surfaces)
• aromatic foliage (herbs and
spices)
• woody stems
• deep root systems
Plant seasonality
rainfall drought
Water acquisition
Water conservation strategies
 1 upper

Sclerophyll 2
3
leaf anatomy A
lower

1. Cutinized upper surface

2. Stomates in crypts B
3. Tomentose openings to
crypts

C
A Ceanothus gloriosus [CA]
B Banksia marginata [Aus.]
A Nerium oleander [Med.]
Plants of the coastal sage (CA)

1. Salvia apiana (white sage)

1 2. Salvia mellifera (black sage)
1
 Plant tactics: allelopathy
• Hypothesis that plants suppress competitors [and
reduce herbivore attacks] by production of noxious
chemicals ( e.g. aromatic foliage of Salvia; or oil-rich
leaves of Eucalyptus which produce intense fires, kill
competition)
Bare zone and
inhibited grass
growth around
Salvia patches in
Santa Inez Valley,
California
 Post-disturbance succession
or climax communities?
evergreen oak maquis [Fr.] garrigue [Fr.]
- pine woodland matorral [Sp.,Ch.] phrygana [Gr.]
macchia [It.] coastal sage [Ca.]
chaparral [Ca.] mallee (Aus.)

Sclerophyllous
woodland with broad- Sclerophyllous Sclerophyllous
leaved deciduous shrubland: shrubland:
trees along streams. small trees <8 m small shrubs
Trees <30 m high; often dense <1 m high

Increasing disturbance?
Vegetation - climate
relations, California
 Community- environment
interactions in shrublands
Thick litter buildup in
mature chaparral
Wildfire in the chapparral
Burnt chaparral
 Post-fire
soil erosion

e.g. sediment
yield after
1989 Mt.
Carmel [CA]
forest fire
 Fire and slope stability in southern
California chaparral: links to the
ENSO cycle
El Niño La Niña La Niña normal
(winter) (winter) (summer) (winter)
s
flow
d
mu
yer and
la s
ic de
h ob sli
r op
d
hy
e.g. 1997-8 1998-9 1999* 1999-2000

* in the summer of 1999 x2 average acreage burned

in southern California
Post-fire recovery
The majority of maquis and
chaparral shrubs are capable
of resprouting after fire (e.g.
California lilac [Ceanothus
tomentosus]) . Fire reduces
competition (by removing
alleopathic litter) and opens up
the canopy to allow
germination of ‘fire annuals’.
 Post-fire succession in chaparral*
Number of plants 5m2

shrubs
perennial

‘fire annuals’

*data from S. California;

fire annuals are rare in
Med. areas (e.g. Chile) with
long fire recurrence
intervals
yrs
The Mediterranean as a “lost Eden”
 Mediterranean vegetation:
degradation to two endpoints?

Oak
woods

maquis

semi-phrygana semi-desert

phrygana

Based on Pantis, J.D. and Mardiris, T.A. 1992. Israel J. Bot., 41, 233-242 [Fig. 2]
maquis-phrygana mosaic (Crete)
 Grazing intensity

Goats at farmhouse near Antequera, Andalucia, Spain.

(June 2007; photo: Dave Napthali)
Grazing and fire effects on
Mediterranean vegetation

Vegetation association (dominants)

1. Oak woodland
(Quercus coccifera)
2. Maquis
(Q. coccifera-Thymus capitatus)
3. Phrygana
(T. capitatus - Ballota acetabulosa)
4. Phrygana?
(T. capitatus - Asphodelus aestivus)
5. Geophyte semi-desert
(A. aestivus )

Data: Pantis, J.D. and Mardiris, T.A. 1992. Israel J. Bot., 41, 233-242 [Table 3]
 Grazing and fire effects on
Mediterranean vegetation - palatability

Palatability
according to
local shepherds

Data: Pantis, J.D. and Mardiris, T.A. 1992. Israel J. Bot., 41, 233-242 [Table 3]
 Deforestation in the Middle East and
Mediterranean world: the legacy of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh, dating from about 2700 BC,

celebrates the life of the legendary Babylonian king. On the
5th clay tablet, Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu (a former
“wild-man”) travel for 7 days to confront the demon
Humbaba, the guardian of the great Cedar Forest. After an
epic battle, Humbaba is killed. Then:
“they attacked the cedars - and while Gilgamesh felled the
first of the trees of the forest Enkidu cleared their roots
as far as the banks of the Euphrates”.

After having felled the forest the heroes return on a cedar

raft and use the tallest of the cedars to build a gate for
the city of Uruk.
 The legacy of Gilgamesh

Deforestation resulted from:

• Wood consumption for fuel (~90% of
total?) to supply domestic hearths, baths
and industrial activities; shipbuilding, and
military activities. Urban centres,
metallurgical refineries and potteries
placed a heavy demand on local fuel
(charcoal) supply.
Deforestation in Cyprus
Copper ores in Cyprus
heavily exploited in Roman
times, but mines
functioned for about a
millenium. Estimated that
5-6 M tons of charcoal
(from coppice) used to
fuel smelting activities.
Heavy SO2 pollution may
also have killed trees.
 The legacy of Gilgamesh
Deforestation resulted from:
• Agricultural clearance - trees uprooted and
burned down. Ashes used for fertilizer.
• Pasturage - herdsmen cut branches to feed
cattle and cut down trees to improve
pasture for cattle and sheep. Pigs eat tree
seeds, goats browse on young trees -
combined effect is permanent deforestation
Early anthropogenic deforestation
in the eastern Mediterranean

Jerf-el-Ahmar
archaeological site
N. Syria;
~11,600 years old
 Deforestation in the

9970±100
Ghab valley, NW Syria

12890±160
pi
n es

cedar

deciduous
oaks

evergreen oaks

olive
73/74, 127-
Quat. Inter.
Clearance at Sögöt,
S.Turkey
Clearance of oak
woodlands for
pasture,
subsistence
agriculture and
arboriculture

above: subsistence
farming (Andalucia)
left: Olives (Jaen)

Photos: Dave Napthali,

June 2007
Initiation of land degradation in
the Mediterranean basin

Goudie, A. 1992. Environmental Change. Oxford

 The effects of deforestation

On the landscape of Attica (central Greece), Plato

commented:

“what now remains compared with what

then existed is like the skeleton of a sick
man, all the fat and soft earth having
wasted away, and only the bare
framework of the land being left”

Critias 111B
 North South
Holocene valley fills
in Greece

Are these episodes of erosion associated with phases of

climate change, or are they exclusively anthropogenic?
Soil erosion and valley filling:
e.g. Ephesus, W. Turkey
 A “heretical” “some of their interpretations are
viewpoint: "heretical" and not shared by many of
their ..research colleagues. … These
Grove and Rackham include the notion that there is little if
any desertification going on in
(Mediterranean) Europe …; that
Mediterranean Europe's badlands and
most of its erosion is natural and not
the result of human action (here they
endorse Vita-Finzi's ideas); that the
human shaping of the landscape of
Mediterranean Europe was for the most
part complete by the Bronze Age, and
that human agency has not done much
to change it since-until perhaps the last
thirty years when bulldozers have been
let loose.”
Abstracted from the review by
J. R. McNeill, 2001. Environmental
History, October issue.
 Rural depopulation, mountains of
Aragon, Spain.
Deserted village and invading pines,
(data: Collantes, F., Pinilla, V. 2005.
western Crete (photo: Oliver Rackham, 1989) Rural History, 15, 149-166.)

"Big fires are a predictable result of rural

depopulation, land abandonment, increase of wild
vegetation, modern forestry, legislation against fire,
and the growth of a fire-fighting industry."
Rackham, O. 2003. Fire in the European Mediterranean.
Aridlands Newsletter, No. 54, November/December