Vegetational Relationships in the Mangroves of Tropical Australia

Abstract

Occurrences of 35 specles were recorded at 1391 sites along 142 transects within 21 locations in N.E. Australia. Class~f~catory techniques were used to define 29 'association-groups', whose complex affinities have been explored. A new technique was devised to study the sequential relationships within and between the transects. It is shown that the character of underlying patterns is frequently obscured by local environmental variability. The study provides evidence that mangrove zonation may be of two fundamentally distinct types and that a unidimensional approach to the sequences of vegetational association-groups is unacceptable. The environmental affinities of the N.E. tidal-forest vegetation, and of individual species, are discussed.