Marloth Park Management Plan. - Nkomazi Local Municipality

For environmental planning not only the vegetation but also the habitat has to be considered.
It is therefore, prudent that plant communities, rather than individual plant species, should be
considered for management and planning purposes. Plant communities summarise the entire
floristic diversity and integrate the environmental variables such as distribution and
occurrence of rare and endangered species, the degree of man’s influence, degradation and
vegetation dynamics, as well as habitats for animals. The plant composition linked with other
environmental factors such as soil, climate, temperature, geological factors and rainfall can
explain why certain species occur in this special habitat and give insight to mechanisms in
this special ecosystem. With this knowledge predictions can be made as to how the ecosystem
might react to applied management actions.
The development of vegetation in any area throughout a series of different plant groupings or
communities from pioneer to climax species is called plant succession. Succession involves
changes of habitat in the form of immigration and consecutive extinction of species, together
with changes in their relative abundances. This biotic action happens because the
establishment of new plant species changes the microclimate and makes the habitat more
suitable for subsequent follow-up plant species. In primary succession development starts on
bare ground, which is colonised by pioneer plants. Secondary succession is the rapid recovery
of a disturbed habitat. A habitat is disturbed where vegetation cover is removed or modified to
an earlier stage because of human interference, animal influence, fire or drought. Ultimately,
development leads to a climax community, which represents a relatively stable stage.
Equilibrium is reached with either regional climate (climatic climax) or other inhibiting
factors such as soil types, topography or nutrient content (edaphic climax) or biotic factors
such as the influence of animals, humans or fires (biotic climax). It is important to determine
the seral stage represented by the plant community, and to monitor for changes, to achieve the
desired objective in manipulating the environment using adaptive management.
To facilitate management of an area, it is divided into units of similar characteristics and
manageable size. Areas that are influenced by different environmental factors such as
geology, geography and climate react differently to natural changes or human interference
and have to be considered independently when devising a management plan. The
homogenous vegetation units occurring within the area define the management units. Each
homogenous unit is identified by its plant composition, where a plant community is defined as
a group of associated plant species occurring in a particular habitat with a relatively uniform
physiognomy or appearance.
© Ecological Associates/ Marloth Park 25