Subject: Alliances and guilds (was: Semiological Issues of Permaculture)

From: Toby Hemenway <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 08:50:45 -0700

John Abdon wrote:

>Do you think the "USGS-NPS Vegetation
>Mapping Program"  concept of 'alliances' are similar in any useful way to
>permaculture's notion of 'guilds'?

I think you could draw a continuum, based on level of interconnectedness,
that goes "alliance-community-guild." Guilds* (sensu Pc, not sensu ecology)
are human-designed plant/animal communities. Communities are a
controversial concept, as some ecologists believe they are merely a
collection of organisms that cluster around the same point on a gradient of
living conditions (soil pH, moisture, temp, light, etc.) whereas others
argue that they are a patterned, self-organized structure that creates most
of its own environment (that's my bet). Alliance, according to a field
ecologist I worked with last summer, is a cop-out term designed to avoid
the associations of the word "community" that simply means a group of
plants who, we don't ask why, all live together. You'll notice that in the
USGS-NPS site in John's post, though the bold-face headings call the plant
groupings "alliances" in the text they are called "communities." So the
revanchism hasn't been total.

I use local communities (or alliances, associations, or whatever) as the
starting point to design guilds. By beginning with species I know are
adapted to local conditions and to each other, I can tweak the groupings,
substituting related or structurally similar species that are more suited
to my needs and those of the landscape, and then observe if the resulting
guild functions well. That's one of about 5 ways to design guilds I know
of. So the answer to your question is yes, alliances and communities are a
very useful tool, and very similar to guilds.

*The use of the term "guild" in permaculture is unfortunate, as ecologists
long ago defined "guild" in a related but different way, to mean a group of
species that occupy the same niche, as the guild of seed-eating bird
species, or of plantkton-eating whales. I think ecology's use better
captures the original sense of guild, as in the guild of weavers or
goldsmiths-a group of similar organisms all performing the same task. Pc's
use is catchy-it's a snappy term, but confusing to ecologists, whom I'd
like to see as our allies. I believe permies Eric Toensmeier and Dave
Jacke, in their upcoming book on Forest Gardens, avoid the use of guild
altogether. How heretical!

Toby

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From: Ute Bohnsack <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 10:15:01 +0100

Dear all,

Botanists and ecologists in Central Europe and in many other countries would be
familiar with phytosociology which defines plant assemblages on the basis of
their floristic composition (plant communities). Phytosociological methodology
was pioneered by J. Braun-Blanquet in the middle of this century.
The fundamental abstract unit in the hierarchical classification used in this
approach is the statistically defined *association*. Associations are grouped
together successively into alliances, orders and classes. Sometimes formations
are used as the highest syntaxonomic level. The taxa (units) are named in Latin
ending on  ~etea (class), ~etalia (order), ~ion (alliance) and (with few
exceptions) ~etum (association).

An example for such a hierarchie:

Formation: Vegetation composed chiefly of shrubs and bushes

Class: Thornbush class (Rhamno-Prunetea)

Order: Prunetalia spinosae (Character species include i.a. Prunus spinosa,
Crateagus monogyna, Rhamnus catharticus, Euonymus europeaus, Cornus
sanguinea.......)

Alliance: Rubion subatlanticum (Diagnostic species: Rubus spp., Sedum telephium)

Association: Primulo-Crataegum (Diagnostic species group: Crataegus monogyna, C.
laevigata, Rubus spp., Prunus spinosa, Rosa canina, Rhamnus cathartica,
Ligustrum vulgare)

Obviously there are other classes, orders, alliances and associations within
this formation and there are many more formations.

The details as to how these taxa and their suites of character species,
differential species and diagnostic species are arrived at would fill a book,
but maybe this explains why there are so many terms floating around. Also, while
this approach is widely used, it is not universal. Great Britain, for example,
has its own system and in the US maybe other appoaches are used again.

Applied phytosociology is an excellent tool for the field ecologist and has many
uses in conservation management. Since it does not only deal with natural
vegetation but also with e.g. forest or agro-ecosystems the understanding of
which species are likely to occur together under given circumstances combined
with a knowledge of successional development of vegetation can be a useful tool
for designing plant communities in PC systems much as in the way described by
Toby.

My 2 cents worth.

Ute

-- 
Dipl.-Ing. TU Landschafts- und Freiraumplanung
Ute Bohnsack
Sailchearnach
Clogher
Kilfenora
Co. Clare
Ireland
mailto:[email-masked]
EN-DE-EN Naturschutz, Landschaftsplanung, Landwirtschaft
http://www.atril.com/bin/directory.dll/1546

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