Appendix 1 - Victorian Environmental Assessment Council

Appendix 2
EVCs found in the Box-Ironbark study area
Identification of EVCs
Appendix 2
In nature, species with similar habitat requirements tend to co-occur at places where their requirements are met.
Ecologists call these co-occurring collections of species communities. A vegetation community is a collection of
co-occurring plant species—it reflects the vegetation’s response to environmental influences such as geology, soils,
landform and rainfall.
Vegetation communities can be identified by recording the abundance of plant species at a large number of sites,
and then systematically comparing the sites to identify clusters of sites which are most similar to each other in
terms of the abundance of plant species. As long as the procedures for comparing and grouping sites are
systematic and consistent, the clusters—or, more accurately, the vegetation associations which they support—will
form the fundamental units of any classification of vegetation associations.
Across Victoria, around 32 000 sites have been surveyed and analysed in this way, including over 800 sites in the
Box-Ironbark study area. The fundamental units resulting from these analyses are called (vegetation) subcommunities.
Sub-communities may indicate different types of disturbance, or different stages in the succession
of a particular vegetation type. Vegetation communities, then, can be identified by aggregating sub-communities
that are similar in terms of their structure, major environmental affinities, and abundance of species.
A further level of aggregation generates Ecological Vegetation Classes (EVCs)—groups of one or more
vegetation communities which exist under a common regime of ecological processes and which are linked to broad
landscape features. The similarity of environmental regimes is apparent in comparable life forms, genera and
vegetation structure. The communities within an EVC differ due to geographical separation rather than major
ecological differences.
Sub-communities, communities and EVCs are levels in a hierarchy, as illustrated in the following key example for
the Box-Ironbark EVC.
EVC
Communities
Sub-communities
Northern Goldfields Box-
Ironbark Forest
‘lower
slope’
‘mid
slope’
‘upper
slope’
‘lower
slope’
Box-Ironbark Forest
Western Goldfields Box-
Ironbark Forest
‘mid
slope’
‘upper
slope’
Note the use of italics to signify that part of the name of a vegetation unit which pertains to a community.
North-eastern Hills Box-
Ironbark Forest
‘grey box
dominant’
‘red box
dominant’
‘mugga ironbark
dominant’
Environment Conservation Council – Box-Ironbark Forests and Woodlands Investigation 1