Interactive controls of herbivory and fluvial dynamics on landscape vegetation patterns on the Tanana River floodplain, interior Alaska

The landscape pattern of vegetation communities is of fundamental importance to ecologists and biogeographers because it establishes the biotic template upon which largescale ecological processes occur. Landscape vegetation patterns within boreal forests are thought to be driven strongly by abiotic disturbance processes (i.e. fire in uplands, floods in floodplains) coupled with the extremely cold climate of boreal regions (Chapin et al., 2006a,b). Biotic interactions (e.g. competition among plants, herbivore–plant interactions) are usually thought to be most important at the community level of organization (e.g. species composition) and in plant successional patterns (Kielland et al., 2006). Boreal forest floodplains are highly active environments where physical disturbance is frequent and obvious. Floods Department of Biology and Wildlife, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA, Department of Forest Sciences, School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA and USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Juneau, AK 99801, USA