Structural comparative analysis of forest and steppe plant communities in the south of Kryvyi Rih region
Structural comparative analysis of forest and steppe plant communities in the south of Kryvyi Rih region

Summary/Abstract: We made a comparative analysis of the floristic structure of 11 various-aged (30–50-year-old) forest and four steppe communities in the south of Kryvyi Rih region. We ascertained that the forest communities have low specific richness (2–90 species), whereas steppe ones contain from 167 to 251 species. The ten families leading in the species number are: Asteraceae, Poaceae, Rosaceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Boraginaceae, Apiaceae, Brassicaceae and Polygonaceae. Specific representation of the steppe communities depends on the geomorphologic formation, grazing pressure, soil cover composition; respective order of families differs slightly: Asteraceae, Poaceae, Fabaceae, Rosaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Lamiaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Brassicaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae. The core of the geographical structure of forest vegetation is the species with a palaearctic type of range (30.3–54.5%), and in the steppe, species with the Black Sea area group (15.6–24.0%). The second and the third most numerous in forest groups are groups of species of transitional areas (3.6–23.3%) and holarctic species (7.0–17.2%). In the steppe communities, almost the same proportions are formed by the species of the palaearctic group and the plants of group of transitional areas (15.8–23.1% and 18.3–21.7% respectively).

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