VEGETATION ECOLOGY OF THE CHIHUAHUAN DESERT

The Chihuahuan Desert (CD), the largest in the Americas, is flanked by mountains that prevent wet winds from blowing across it; those mountain ranges are the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt and the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico, and the Rockies in the United States. The desert covers an area of 507,000 km2, stretching from New Mexico and Texas in the United States to parts of the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Nuevo Leon, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas in Mexico. Field work consisted of the qualitative characterization of the main vegetation types in the CH, based on their physiognomy and the collection of plant specimens for later identification. With the composition and physiognomy data, semi-realistic profiles were made of the main plant associations and the physiographic and soil conditions where they thrive. The associations detected were: Larrea tridentata microphyll scrub, Agave lechuguilla rosette scrub, Dasylirion spp. rosette scrub, grassland, chaparral, nopalera (a patch of prickly pears), mesquite, yucca, dune vegetation and halophytic vegetation.