NatureServe: Plant Communities of the Midwest

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Plant Communities of the Midwest > Executive Summary

Plant Communities of the Midwest: Classification in an Ecological Context
Edited by Don Faber-Langendoen
Contributors include ecologists from the natural heritage programs in the Midwest, The Nature Conservancy, and NatureServe Ecology staff.

Midwestern plant communities—from Great Plains grasslands to the dense boreal forests that frame the shores of the Great Lakes and from northern peatland bogs to dry, Ozark glades—have long fascinated plant ecologists. Ecologists from NatureServe and natural heritage programs have been working to produce a classification that summarizes their understanding of the ecological diversity of this region.

Now a comprehensive survey of all the natural plant communities found in this twelve-state region is available in a single volume.

This report:

Introduces the U.S. National Vegetation Classification
Explains the process used to define the 588 Midwest community types (associations)
Provides detailed descriptions of each of these associations
Places the associations in an ecological context by organizing them into ecological groups.
Includes color plates that show examples of community types in each of the major ecological groups.

Plant Community (Association) Descriptions

An extensive 705-page appendix provides a detailed description of each association, using a standard one-page format that includes a vegetation and environmental summary, conservation status, and range-wide distribution. Each description also includes a crosswalk or synonymy to Midwest natural heritage program classification types (where those states use an independent state classification) and to other related types.

Purpose of this Report

The descriptions provided in this report represent both a thorough synthesis of the literature on the vegetation of the Midwest and a practical tool for conservation and management. The classification on which these descriptions are based is already being put to use by state natural heritage programs, federal agencies, and conservation organizations in a region extensively altered by human activity. With these detailed descriptions we intend to make the classification more widely accessible and more useful and to provide a common framework for describing and conserving Midwest vegetation.

Ordering the Report

This publication is also available in two bound volumes

the Main Report (61 pp.): $20 + $5 shipping
Appendix (705 pp.): $57 + $5 shipping. (State subsets are only available in electronic format via this website.)

To order, send requests to Meghann Gili via email at Meghann_Gili@natureserve.org , or by phone at 703-908-1881.