While a high subsidence rate of a basin is reflected by high TPI and wood-derived tissues, a low TPI is indicative of subsidence with enhanced humification due to dominating herbaceous vegetation in the mire.
Above a critical level, which may vary between slopes on the same mountain and which is much higher on mountains at lower latitude, the climate becomes too harsh to permit tree growth; beyond that level grows alpine vegetation, dominated by herbaceous plants, such as grasses and forbs, or by low shrubs.
During both years under consideration, each county in the study region, across various land-tenure regimes, was dominated by herbaceous vegetation.
Groups 2 (sites 2, 3, 5, 10, and 13) and 3 (sites 12 and 14) are dominated by herbaceous species occupying wetter valley floor locations.
The pollen assemblages in both years are dominated by herbaceous taxa such as Artemisia, Amaranthaceae, Poaceae, Asteraceae, Cyperaceae, Fabaceae and Allium.
Results indicate that while some forests gave way to open environments dominated by herbaceous taxa, other communities remained or recovered quickly.
Totara was also more common where other woody species (such as gorse) were regenerating, and in plots dominated by herbaceous species more tolerant of lower-fertility sites such as those in TWINSPAN Groups 3 and 4 (Figure 2d).
The 1992 landscape of the bi-county region was dominated by herbaceous vegetation with small amounts of cultivated lands, shrubland, and forest dispersed throughout (Figs. 2 and 3 and Table 2).
The understory of deciduous Nothofagus forest is dominated by herbaceous plants associated with frequent small-scalle disturbances (e.g., gap formation) or a more dynamic than the evergreen forest canopy (Lencinas et al. 2008b, 2011; Promis et al. 2010).
Closer to the rivers, forests are shorter, frequently flooded, and grade into communities dominated by herbaceous species, bryophytes and scattered small shrubs of mainly Coprosma and Carmichaelia species (Mitchell Partnerships 2007a, 2007b).
