Ecologically-Relevant Maps of Landforms and Physiographic Diversity for Climate Adaptation Planning.

ABSTRACT: Key to understanding the implications of climate and land use change on biodiversity and natural resources is to incorporate the physiographic platform on which changes in ecological systems unfold. Here, we advance a detailed classification and high-resolution map of physiography, built by combining landforms and lithology (soil parent material) at multiple spatial scales. We used only relatively static abiotic variables (i.e., excluded climatic and biotic factors) to prevent confounding current ecological patterns and processes with enduring landscape features, and to make the physiographic classification more interpretable for climate adaptation planning. We generated novel spatial databases for 15 landform and 269 physiographic types across the conterminous United States of America. We

SUBMITTER: Theobald DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4671541 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature