Title: Die Vegetation der Brindabella Range bei Canberra
First published: 1970
Description: This monograph is a description of the vegetation types (plant communities) of the mountains west of Canberra, ACT, Australia, usually referred to as The Brindabellas". More correctly, the Brindabella Range and associated northern Cotter Valley and includes some reference to the adjacent Tidbinbilla Valley. Areas north of Mt Gingera were recorded in 1965 using standard methods known broadly as the Braun-Blanquet system which is the traditional European method of vegetation recording and classification. In this last respect, the study is unusual in the history of Australian plant ecological and biogeographical studies. Very few workers have published work done in this format, preferring rather to develop methods deemed more appropriate to Australian ecological conditions. Nevertheless, much data in Australia has been collected using components of this method, such as the so called "cover abundance" scale, a joint measure of both cover and extent within measured "quadrat" sample areas. The original Braun-Blanquet system purported to provide a means of describing and in particular, classifying in a rigorous scheme of defined units, vegetation types, using a hierarchical system similar in concept to the nomenclature system used to classify biological species. This part of Braun-Blanquet's system has drawn the strongest critique and forms the basis of the preference for developing new systems which, although somewhat imitative in their classification terminology, do not depend on a rigid application of data analysis such as the method uses. In particualr, the selection of sample areas to "represent" the "type", in contrast to environmentally stratified  sampling designs from which a range of classifiable entities may be identified more objectively, nowadays based of specialised computer analyses, has been a major issue. Nevertheless, any data that have been recorded meticulously by an experienced observer well qualified in plant identification, or well supported by others who can assist in this, as for example in foreign countries, has considerable descriptive value. If the basis of its sampling is also known, it can often by "massaged" into more modern analytical programmes to provide additional or, revised concepts relating to a range of vegetation types. It is historically, the most widely used system and has been applied, often uncritically, throughout the world and therefore, substantial datasets in this format exist where perhaps, no other data have been recorded. In the hands of experienced interpreters, these datasets are at first the basis of historical information in studies related to monitoringor envionmental changes, and secondarily, the only available data on by which the vegetation of a region or a small area may be known. In other words, Lang's study in Australia was anomalous but classical, and stands in the canon of international studies undertaken by such European trained ecologists in many places and is not without value. My perspective is that caution in accepting his interpretation of the classification may be necessary. His work in the Brindabella range has been ignored for over forty years but because of the time span it now encompasses, it is increasing in potential value as an early systematically recorded inventory of species and vegetation complexes, carried out at a time when few other workesr were making vegetation records of similar standard in this region. With the exception of monitoring studies made in some detail, the majority of survey and descriptive work done up till then was based often on quadrat or larger area samples of species in measured areas, sometimes not defined areas, and classification was subjective. Shortly after this period, the computer based approaces of Williams and Lambert at Southampton Univerity began to gain acceptance and computers became more available to use in this work. Lang's work is therefore worth noting but requires caution in interpretation. It is becoming valuable as a possible source of early time line data for monitoring studies. The greatest difficulty is that his site locations maust now be relocated using GIS methods. Absolute precision is impossible but the location of the sites shown on his small published map in the monograph is possible within limits.
Subjects: Plant communities, vegetation, environmental change, Australia, ecology, monitoring
Places: Brindabella Range, Australia, Tidbinbilla Valley
Time periods: 1965
LC classification: Q49 .M22 1970, Nr. 1