“…Habitats with spatially heterogeneous abiotic conditions provide a greater variety of potentially suitable niches for plant species as habitats with homogenous characteristics. Variations in physical structure (e.g., slope direction, soil structure) have proven to be an appropriate factor for the prediction of the richness, diversity and dominance of plant species (e.g., Hobbs, 1988;Lapin and Barnes, 1995;Burnett et al, 1998;Nichols et al, 1998;Honnay et al, 2003, 241). For example, in studies by Burnett et al in deciduous forests, the sites with high geomorphological heterogeneity were those with the highest plant diversity (Burnett et al, 1998, 367-368).…”