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Last modified
7/14/2009 5:02:30 PM
Creation date
5/20/2009 10:03:10 AM
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UCREFRP
UCREFRP Catalog Number
7388
Author
Ohmart, R. D., B. W. Anderson and W. C. Hunter.
Title
Ecology of the Lower Colorado River from Davis Dam to the Mexico-United States International Boundary
USFW Year
1988.
USFW - Doc Type
A Community Profile.
Copyright Material
NO
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<br /> <br />J. <br />a <br />a. <br />Figure 11. Honey mesquite habitat, without a well-developed shrub layer, near <br />Yuma, AZ. Photo by R.E. Tollefson. <br />shrubs grew locally in dense clumps on <br />the second terrace. Salt bush <br />(Atr i p I ex polycarpa, 6-. cyan) was <br />the most conspicuous. Inkweed or <br />pickleweed (Suaeda torreyana) pre- <br />ferred denser saline or alkaline <br />soils. These shrubs formed mats <br />between the mesquite woods and lined <br />the bases of mesas. An additional <br />shrub, quail bush (Atrip I ex <br />Ientiformis), occurred IocaIIy as a <br />narrow belt where the first and second <br />bottoms abutted (Figure 12). <br />As a whole, the riparian vegeta- <br />tion of the fIoodpIa1n was a north- <br />south line of greenery in the vast <br />Colorado Desert, and was the only <br />forest-like vegetation for hundreds of <br />kilometers. Each of the component <br />elements of this belt was adapted to <br />the seemingly hostile, yet relatively <br />predictable, local environment in <br />which it occurred. Today's natural <br />plant associations bear little resem- <br />blance to what Grinnell described in <br />1914. The cycle of annual flooding <br />has ceased, the effect of terracing is <br />barely apparent, and the most produc- <br />tive land has either been inundated by <br />reservoirs or developed for agricul- <br />ture. Although rapidly disappearing, <br />every plant community element persists <br />somewhere along the river today, most- <br />ly as remnants, but sometimes as quite <br />large "islands" of vegetation. The <br />essential character of the existing <br />riparian vegetation has been signifi- <br />cantly altered by the introduction of <br />saltcedar (Tamarix chinensis CZ. <br />pentandra7) (Figure 13). This plant <br />dominates under conditions that char- <br />acterize the modern valley--frequent <br />fire, prolonged and unpredictable <br />inundation, and high salinity. Con- <br />comitant with the fragmentation and <br />12
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