Wetland Plants of Specialized Habitats in the Arid West
2007
Lichvar, Robert | Dixon, Lindsey
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently regionalizing and updating the national wetland delineation manual. This manual will use new ecosystem boundaries for the nation. A separate effort by the Corps will update the National Wetland Plant List within these same new ecosystem boundaries. The Arid West is an area of particular interest in the revision of the plant list because of the problematic indicator statuses for certain groups of plants. Many species in the Arid West have morphological and physiological adaptations that allow them to occur in specialized habitats, ranging from wetlands to uplands. In delineations, the indicator status of these species is not always accurate for the specific location. A combination of literature reviews and recorded species data from previous studies for six specialty habitats are presented and discussed; the species groups are playa edge species, dry wash species, dry wash phreatophytes, hygro-halophytes, xero-halophytes, and phreatophytes with salt tolerance. A total of 421 species, with 93 of those species shared in more than one habitat type, are reported, including 48 playa species, 346 dry wash species, 62 dry wash phreatophytes, 32 hygro-halophytes, 47 xero-halophytes, and 17 phreatophytes with salt tolerance. The list for each specialized habitat will be used to better understand species ecology and occurrences across the region and will ultimately help in assigning and increasing the reliability of wetland plant indicator statuses.
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