Context-dependence of diagnostic species: A case study of the Central European spruce forests
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2002 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Folia Geobotanica |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | http://www.sci.muni.cz/botany/chytry/FG2002b.pdf |
| Field | Ecology |
| Keywords | Bohemian Massif; Eastern Alps; Fidelity; Phytosociological database; Picea abies; Vegetation survey; Western Carpathians |
| Description | Diagnostic species of spruce forests were determined from a data set of 20,164 phytosociological relevés of forests from the Eastern Alps, Western Carpathians, and the Bohemian Massif, which included 3,569 relevés of spruce forests. Phi coefficient of association was used to measure species fidelity, and species with the highest fidelities were considered as diagnostic. Diagnostic species were determined in three ways, including (1) comparison of spruce forests among the three mountain ranges, (2) comparison between spruce forests and the other forests, performed separately in each of the mountain ranges, (3) simultaneous comparison of spruce forests of each of the mountain ranges with the spruce forests of the other two ranges and with the other forests of all ranges. The first case simulated phytosociological studies which focus on a limited range of habitats but have a wider geographical extent. The second case simulated studies done locally but in a broader range of different habitats. The third case is superior to the former two, but it can be rarely realized due to the lack of data. The sets of diagnostic species of spruce forests yielded in the first and second case were sharply different; the set resulting from the third case was a compromise between the former two. In the first case, spruce forests of the Eastern Alps had a number of diagnostic species, while the spruce forests of the other two mountain ranges were poorly characterized in these terms. In the second case, on the contrary, the quality of diagnostic species decreased from the Bohemian Massif to the Eastern Alps. This exercise points out that many lists of diagnostic species published in phytosociological literature have an equivocal meaning: unless we know what community types were compared prior to the determination of the diagnostic species, we can hardly use these lists for identification of community types. |
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