2. Données et outils
  3. Rechercher un habitat
  4. 34.6 - Mediterranean tall-grass and wormwood steppes
  5. Description
34.6 - Mediterranean tall-grass and wormwood steppes
34.5 - Mediterranean xeric grasslands
34.7 - Mediterraneo-montane grasslands

Classification des habitats du Paléarctique (2001)

Description

Meso-, thermo- and sometimes supra-Mediterranean formations of the Mediterranean basin, physiognomically dominated by tall grasses, between which may grow communities of annuals or sometimes chamaephytes. They include silicicolous as well as basiphile formations. In the Mediterranean region proper, they are most characteristic of the Iberian peninsula, of parts of the North African coastal regions and of the Mediterranean rim of Anatolia and the Levant, with local representations in southern Provence, Sardinia, southern peninsular Italy, Sicily and Greece. In the transition regions between the Mediterranean zone and the southern Palaearctic deserts they come to dominate the landscape, forming major steppe belts in the Saharo-Mediterranean transition zone and in Western Asia. Perhaps largely anthropogenic, they are physiognomically and, at least in Asia, to some extent, floristically similar to the continental formations of unit 34.9, but, developed under a Mediterranean climate regime and mostly with a single period of dormancy. They associate with Artemisia-dominated steppes, related even more closely to Central Eurasian formations of unit 34.9, but listed here to preserve ecogeographical unity.

Correspondances phytosociologiques

Lygeo-Stipetea p. (Rosmarinetalia p.), Brachypodio-Chrysopogonetea p.

Bibliographie

Devillers P., Devillers-Terschuren J. & Vander Linden C., 2001. PHYSIS Palaearctic Habitat Classification Database. Updated to 10 December 2001. Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles, Bruxelles. (Source)

Rechinger, 1951; Braun-Blanquet and Bolos, 1954; Buia, 1957; Molinier, 1957; Delvosalle and Duvigneaud, 1962; Polunin and Smythies, 1973; Zohary, 1973; Costa, 1973, 1974; Horvat & al., 1974; Rivas-Martinez, 1975c, 1977a; Peinado Lorca & al., 1984; Brullo, 1985; Polunin and Walters, 1985; Le Houérou, 1986; Peinado Lorca and Rivas-Martinez, 1987; Asensi Marfil and Diez Garretas, 1987; Martinez Parras and Peinado Lorca, 1987; Alcaraz Ariza and Peinado Lorca, 1987; Aparicio Martinez and Silvestre Domingo, 1987; Martinez Parras & al., 1987; Walter and Breckle, 1991c; Foucault, 1993b: 271-274.