CRITIQUE OF SOME VEGETATIONAL CONCEPTS AS APPLIED TO FORESTS OF NORTHWESTERN ALBERTA

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Abstract
The application, by R. Plochmann, of certain European silvicultural and ecological concepts in the study and description of forests of northwestern Alberta is examined. His ideas of unidirectional succession to the single climax forest are criticized on the grounds that concepts such as succession and climax must always be related to specific terrain. Every forest community, and indeed every vegetational community, is the botanical part of a unique geographic ecosystem which gives it meaning, and it is neglect of the geographic framework which has led to the false assumptions that forest communities can be studied as things-in-themselves, and that vegetational concepts derived in one region can be transplanted unchanged to others.

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