Bosques y orlas forestales de los territorios atlánticos del Noroeste Ibérico

Abstract

This work summarizes all the information generated to date on the natural forests and their forest mantles of the territory included in the Atlantic biogeographic province of the Iberian Peninsula. The concept and limits of this territory have been revised and slightly modified after incorporating new information on the vegetation of various surrounding areas. All the phytosociological literature produced from the beginning of the 20th century to the present has been reviewed, which is offered in a specific list, and a critical catalog of vegetation units has been made, in the format of a commented syntaxonomic scheme. In it, the accepted syntaxa are sorted, including classes (9), orders (14), alliances (30), suballiances (19) and associations (141). The name, authorship and publication of each of them is given, plus a description of its structure, its habitat, its characteristic combination of plants, its distribution and its variability, which in the case of associations is manifested through the recognized subassociations. Of all these units, their most used synonyms and the indication of their nomenclatural types are provided. In the cases in which it has been considered necessary, some observations are added. The forestal and subforestal world is described, including the orotemperate scrublands of the high mountains and the shrublands that constitute the mantles that seal the forests on their periphery and replace them in a first successional stage. The classes dealt with are: Alnetea glutinosae, Betulo carpaticae-Alnetea viridis, Cytisetea scopario-striati, Junipero sabinae-Pinetea sylvestris, Loiseleurio procumbentisVaccinietea microphylli, Quercetea ilicis, Querco roboris-Fagetea sylvaticae, Rhamno catharticae-Prunetea spinosae and Salicetea purpureae.