Applications of Local Floras for Floristic Subdivision and Monitoring Vascular Plant Diversity in the Russian Arctic
The local flora method has been used by Russian botanists for studying vast wilderness areas. The method strives to determine the total flora within a certain limited area and provides comparable data for spatial comparisons between different locations and temporal comparisons at the same location....
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
NRC Research Press (a division of Canadian Science Publishing)
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1807/74420 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/AS-2015-0010 |
| Summary: | The local flora method has been used by Russian botanists for studying vast wilderness areas. The method strives to determine the total flora within a certain limited area and provides comparable data for spatial comparisons between different locations and temporal comparisons at the same location. Complete vascular plant diversity was sampled in 240 localities with an area between 100-300 km2 each throughout the Russian Arctic. These data were incorporated in a specially developed Integrated Botanical Information System (IBIS). This database provides a unique opportunity to study spatial gradients of different floristic variables. Pair-wise similarity of species composition and proportions of various phytogeographical groups in local floras were used in a floristic subdivision of the Russian Arctic. The floristic units derived by this method often resembled subprovinces of Yurtsev (1994), but there were also several areas of non-alignment. Application of local floras for monitoring of temporal changes has several constraints. However, nine local floras were re-visited 20-70 years after the initial survey. Increases in the number of Boreal and Hypoarctic species were recorded in the southern local floras. Standardized methods and the use of modern technical tools for accurate documentation could enable use of this approach at observatories across the Arctic. The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author. |
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