Chorological phenomena in spruce and beech communities

✍ Scribed by Jahn, Gisela

• Book ID: 104624362
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 754 KB
• Volume: 59
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-5052
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00055673

✦ Synopsis

The problems and tasks arising from chorological phenomena in plant communities may be summarized as (a) the recognition and description of syngeographical changes and their causes with the aid of vegetation tables comparing communities over large regions and of a study of the environmental conditions; (b) the identification of analogous or vicariant communities and the detection of synonyms; (c) the classification of these communities within the phytosociological system. These phenomena will be demonstrated with spruce and beech communities as examples. In Table 1 the floristic similarities and differences of the European spruce communities are depicted. Table 2 compares the mo~t important spruce communities that have been described up to now and shows the large number of synonyms for communities which are closely related from the sociological and ecological points of view. Their systematic position is briefly discussed. In Tables 3 5, chorological phenomena of the suballiance Eu Fagenion are described, viz. the association groups of beech woods on limestone and of beech communities rich in species on rich siliceous substrate in the montane and submontane zones. Tables 7 and8 contain a survey of how chorological phenomena have been treated in phytosociological systematics by various authors. Usually regional classification is carried out at the level of the alliance or suballiance, or, more frequently, at the level of the association.

* Nomenclature follows Oberdorfer (1979).