Sierra Nevada Framework FEIS Chapter 3
table of contrents Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment – Part 4.6 4.6. Vascular Plants, Bryophytes, and Fungi4.6. Fungi Introduction Part 3.1 of this chapter describes landscape-scale vegetation patterns. Part 3.2 describes the vegetative structure, function, and composition of old forest ecosystems, while Part 3.3 describes hardwood ecosystems and Part 3.4 describes aquatic, riparian, and meadow ecosystems. This part focuses on botanical diversity in the Sierra Nevada, beginning with an overview of botanical resources and then presenting a more detailed analysis of the rarest elements of the flora, the threatened, endangered, and sensitive (TES) plants. The bryophytes (mosses and liverworts), lichens, and fungi of the Sierra have been little studied in comparison to the vascular flora. In the Pacific Northwest, studies of these groups have received increased attention due to the President’s Northwest Forest Plan. New and valuable scientific data is being revealed, some of which may apply to species in the Sierra Nevada. This section presents an overview of the vascular plant flora, followed by summaries of what is generally known about bryophytes, lichens, and fungi in the Sierra Nevada. Environmental Consequences of the alternatives are only analyzed for the Threatened, Endangered, and Sensitive plants, which include vascular plants, several bryophytes, and one species of lichen. 4.6.1. Vascular plants4.6.1. plants The diversity of topography, geology, and elevation in the Sierra Nevada combine to create a remarkably diverse flora (see Section 3.1 for an overview of landscape patterns and vegetation dynamics in the Sierra Nevada). More than half of the approximately 5,000 native vascular plant species in California occur in the Sierra Nevada, despite the fact that the range contains less than 20 percent of the state’s land base (Shevock 1996).
[Show full text]