Austin (1981) and Bailey (1980b) presented a gener- 

 alized scheme for combining the ecological units derived 

 by the previously discussed integration process. The pro- 

 cedure (Bailey 1980b), called regionalization, partitions 

 the landscape into regional ecosystems. Regional ecosys- 

 tems can represent associations of smaller ecosystems 

 within prescribed boundaries. Climate, physiography, 

 and physical geography as they affect plant communities 

 and soils are used as primary criteria for describing the 

 regionalized ecosystems and placing map boundaries. 

 The resultant map displays regional ecosystems nested 

 within one another in a hierarchy of spatial sizes. At any 

 level of the hierarchy, regionalization always deals with 

 geographically associated ecological units. Each unit con- 



stitutes a unique piece of the landscape to which specific 

 geographic designations may be assigned. 



A major contribution of regionalization is that it dis- 

 plays spatial patterns of ecological associations and dis- 

 plays by maps the juxtaposition and interspersion of 

 ecological units. This part of the classification frame- 

 work is needed to assist in wildlife habitat, fish habitat, 

 and recreation opportunity assessments. For example, 

 the analysis of a Western United States deer herd situa- 

 tion must simultaneously consider the mixture of winter 

 range and summer range. The area would include sage- 

 brush, submontane and montane grassland, coniferous 

 forest, deciduous forest, and high elevation (alpine) 

 grasslands and shrublands. 



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