Syntaxonomic diversity as an indicator of ecological diversity — case study Vranica Mts in the Central Bosnia

Abstract

Syntaxonomic diversity (SD) represents the number of plant communities (phytocoenoses) in certain area. Plant communities as organized systems of populations of various coexisting plant species inhabiting same or similar habitat in the function of time. SD is one of the best indicators of the state and potential carrying capacity of every ecosystem and an attribute of total ecological diversity. In general, level of syntaxonomic diversity indicates habitat heterogeneity and diversity. This could have significant importance in the categorization of habitat values in accordance with European Nature Information System (EUNIS) criteria. The results presented in this paper indicate without any doubt high natural values of mountain range Vranica in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the best proofs is an extremely high level of syntaxonomic diversity. In this area covering just 288 km 2 , vegetation is differentiated into 9 formations, 28 classes, 44 orders, 73 alliances and 165 associations. This represents 85% of all classes, 73% of all orders, 65% of all alliances, and 53% of all associations of vegetation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or 35% of all classes in vegetation diversity in Europe. Going from the level of class to the level of order, the number of syntaxa increases for 61%, from order to alliance for 60%, and from alliance to association for 44.24% (average 55%). SD index is very high and it is 0.5729. This means that on each km 2 contains 0.5729 syntaxa.

Hieracia balcanica VIII. Hieracium nigrescens subsp. brachytrichellum (Asteraceae), a new taxon in the Balkan flora

“…The flora and vegetation display a considerable resemblance to those of the Carpathians (Redžić 2007;Stefanović et al 2009). Of the species occurring on the Vranica Mountains whose the centre of range is to be found in the Carpathians, the most spectacular example is Leucanthemum waldsteinii (Schultz-Bip.)…”

“…Out of the whole of the Dinaric Mountains, only on the Vranica Mountains does Carex curvula All. grow, forming an association Phyteumo confusae-Caricetum curvulae (Redžić 2007) having a very similar species composition to Primulo minimaeCaricetum curvulae from the Southern Carpathians (Coldea 1991). The latest phylogeographic studies on Carex curvula revealed a genetic uniformity of the whole eastern (i.e.…”

EKOLOŠKO-FLORISTIČKA DIFERENCIJACIJA PLANINSKIH RUDINA NA KARBONATIMA KLASE ELYNO-SESLERIETEA Br-Bl. 1948 / ECOLOGICAL-FLORISTIC DIFFERENTIATION OF THE MOUNTAIN PASTURES ON CARBONATE of THE CLASS ELYNOSESLERIETEA Br-Bl. 1948

“…), te iznad pojasa submontane smrčeve šume Picetum "subalpinum" (Lakušić, 1966(Lakušić, , 1970Horvat et al, 1974;Lakušić et al, 1979;Redžić, 2007Redžić, , 2011.…”

“…Snježni pokrivač je prisutan oko 180 dana godišnje. Pored temperature, za biljni pokrov je važno formativno djelovanje vjetra (Lakušić, 1970;Redžić, 2007).…”

“…To su : Horvat, 1930: Horvat, , 1960Lakušić, 1966Lakušić, , 1970Tomić-Stanković, 1970;Horvat et al, 1974;Lakušić et al, 1979, Lakušić et al, 1987, Redžić et al, 1984, Redžić et al, 1994Redžić, 2007Redžić, , 2011. Nomenklatura biljnih vrsta je najvećim dijelom data prema Flori Europe (Tutin et al, 1964-80).…”