The vegetation of Madeira: V - Lino stricti-Stipetum capensis, ass. nova and Vicio costei-Echietum plantagini, ass. nova, two new semi-nitrophylous associations from Porto-Santo Island (Archipelag of Madeira)

Porto Santo is a deeply eroded oceanic island. The human uses of the territory led to a massive destruction of its primitive vegetation cover and its substitution by new types of vegetation constituted by plants adapted to the novel perturbation regimes introduced by human settlers. A vegetation cover once dominated by trees or shrubs that evolved isolated from herbivory during millions of years, was replaced since the XV century by herbaceous anthropogenic vegetation, dominated by neophytes, adapted to perturbation events imposed by mammal herbivores (goats and rabbits) and by dry-farming agriculture (mostly barley). Agriculture and grazing together with low climatic precipitation levels promoted subnitrophylous types of herbaceous vegetation. So, today's Porto Santo vegetation is largely dominated by two, yet undescribed, herbaceous subnitrophylous phytocoenosis: Lino stricti-Stipetum capensis and Vicio costei-Echietum plantagini.

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