The vascular flora ecological diversity in the mid-field woodlots situated on the agricultural outskirts of Wrocław

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of the ecological requirements and sociological-ecological relations of 403 species of vascular plants recorded in 82 mid-field woodlots located among crop fields in the agricultural outskirts of Wrocław. The aim of the research and analyses was to determine what is the species composition of these woodlots and whether they are ecologically more similar to those situated in environment of farmlands or urban wastelands. The authors assumed the latter. It was found that the mid-­ -field woodlots occupied less than 1% of arable land and were located exclusively in close proximity to the city’s administrative borders, and more than half of them were related to the hydrographic network of the area. Their flora, in general assessment, shows a great variety in terms of water requirements and has the features of woodlots described from typically agricultural areas. This applies to the dominance of forest, shrub and meadow species with a constant, usually not exceeding 20%, share of ruderal plants and a small number of weeds in crops. Thus, the assumption that the flora of the studied woodlots will show signs of ruderalization to a large extent has not been confirmed. 72% of species occurred in no more than 10 objects, which shows that the described ecological diversity of the flora studied is based on single or few locations. The most frequent species were nitrophilic and in over 50% they represented a group of shrub communities. The list of the species recorded with estimation of their frequency is provided.

Open questions about the farmlands’ biodiversity preservation in the cities’ peripheries – a Wrocław case (Poland)

“…Most of the flora found in the studied woods are plants widely distributed in the country, but there were also 3 protected species, 4 endangered species and 3 rare species in the Lower Silesia region (Fudali et al, 2020). The presence of indicator plant species of ancient forests was also found (Fudali et al, 2021). In terms of biodiversity protection in agricultural landscapes, these are the attributes assigned to marginal habitats (e.g.…”

“…The area within the range of tree crowns (vertical projection) was assumed as the area of a given object. List of the plant species recorded with information of their frequency was provided in Fudali et al (2021). The potential use of the plants as forage for insects and other animals was defined basing on the available literature (Düll & Kutzelnigg, 2005;Ebert, 1994;Fitter, 1987;Oberdorfer, 2001;Rostafiński & Seidl, 1973;Witt, 1995).…”

“…The found vascular flora is ecologically diverse in relation to the moisture requirements, e.g. with a clear dominance of mesophytes (58%), 20% of species were hygrophytes and aquatic plants, while 5% -plants of dry habitats (Fudali et al, 2021). So these woods create ecologically diverse habitats, which indicates their potential role as stopping places for the migration of plants with different requirements.…”

“…In the conditions of Poland the latter function is served mostly by field woods, mid-field water bodies and ditches, and field margins, i.e. non-crop habitats defined in the literature as "marginal habitats" or "environmental islands" (Gamrat, 2012;Wuczyński et al, 2014;Tomaszewska et al, 2016;Ceynowa-Giełdon et al, 2017;Fudali et al, 2020 and literature quoted therein), or recently as elements of "green infrastructure" (European Commission, 2013). Considering accelerating urbanization a question what are changes in the structure and species composition of still existing fragments of agricultural landscape on city peripheries seems worthy to study.…”

“…The first stage concerned field woods due to reported in the literature a strong dependence of the level of biological diversity of agricultural lands on field woods (Orzechowski & Trzcianowska, 2016). The initial results have documented a fairly high species richness of plants and their ecological diversity as well as the presence of protected, endangered and rare species in the region (Fudali et al, 2020(Fudali et al, , 2021. During field studies some practices that pose a threat to these woods have been observed.…”