Land Cover Seral

Comprehensive map of land cover seral state (including climax and disclimax areas) on the Rensselaer Plateau based on a detailed standardized classification of ecological community types and reflecting the general (coarse-scale) maturity of the plateau landscape. Seral state is determined specifically from the one ecological community most likely from each location. Climax and disclimax areas are derived from areas mapped as natural climax and disclimax community types. Climax and disclimax community types are defined as types expected to ultimately occupy an area without any human alteration over very long time periods. Climax and disclimax community types represent community types that reach an equilibrium or steady state for a given combination of underlying physical features (soils, bedrock, hydrology, topography) and theoretically persist indefinitely as long as those physical features remain. In the classical theory, climax types are all forest types that develop on deep upland soils on level topography. In contrast, disclimax types are typically non-forest types that can develop on shallow soils, wet soils, and/or steep soils. One or more of those conditions usually result in prevention of the development of a forest community type, especially through processes such as inundation, flooding, erosion, or exposure to wind, heat, and/or snow and ice.