Advances in ecological modelling of soil properties by self-organizing feature maps of natural environment of Lower Silesia (Poland)

Abstract

The paper provides the use of self-organizing feature maps for determination of soil properties in its initial stage of development formed of massive rocks and how SOFM can be used for the study of environmental objects. The study area was Lower Silesia (Poland) overgrown with common, unique and protected vegetation of lichens, bryophytes and vascular plants. The parent rock of the studied soils consists of Miocene volcanites from the middle part of the Sudety Margin Fault. Soil samples were collected from 20 sites. The soil reaction (pH) and concentrations of Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, S, Ti, Zn in surface soils were analyzed. Statistical analysis was carried out by one-way ANOVA. The SOFM was used to demonstrate the non-linear ordination and visualization of soil properties. The SOFM showed the influence of parent rock on soil chemical properties generated by it. SOFM appeared to be effective and proper/fit for phenomena and processes taking place in natural environment and is useful in ecology and ought to be taken into account as a possible tool of estimation of various plants and their biotopes. The model can be useful as alternative techniques in modelling the ecological complex data, and provide a novel framework for the discovery and forecasting of ecosystem structure and behaviours in response to environmental changes

Modelling of habitat conditions by self-organizing feature maps using relations between soil, plant chemical properties and type of basaltoides

“…The study area was Lower Silesia in Poland (19 948 km 2 ), and archival data used accordimg to the paper by Koz³owska-Koch (1987), the manuscript of Ph.D. dissertation by Stankiewicz (1996) and the paper by Stankiewicz and Kosiba (2009). The description of Lower Silesian terri-tory in respect of systematics of the Polish soils and classification of these soils according to TAS division are given by Koz³owska-Koch (1987) and Trzciñski (1989), respectively.…”

“…Detailed information on chemical composition of the types of basaltoides from 89 sites (Al 2 O 3 , CaO, FeO, Fe 2 O 3 , K 2 O, MgO, MnO, Na 2 O, P 2 O 5 , SiO 2 and TiO 2 ), of the soils from 20 samples (Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, S, Ti and Zn) and plants from 20 samples (Ca, Cd, Co, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, N, Ni, P, Pb, S, Ti and Zn), the preparation of material for chemical analyses and the methods of determination of chemical components are presented in papers by Koz³owska-Koch (1987), Stankiewicz (1996) and Stankiewicz and Kosiba (2009), respectively.…”

“…The obtained Kohonens topological maps showed the neurons or groups of neurons activated by the particular investigated cases. The scheme of SOFM with Kohonens algorithm, details on training of the network and references are presented by Stankiewicz and Kosiba (2009).…”

“…The soils in the area of Lower Silesia formed from basalts (Adamczyk 2008), are overgrown with common but also unique and protected vegetation (Mróz 2001;Fabiszewski and Kwiatkowski 2002;Stankiewicz and Kosiba 2009; and other references cited by these authors), for example lithophytes, among which the chasmophytes are of particular importance and do not appear beyond those types of soils: Asplenium septentrionale, A. trichomanes, Polypodium vulgare, Dryopteris filix-mas, Sedum acre, Thymus pulegioides, Hieracium pilosella. These soils contain different levels of elements, in particular heavy metals and offer special conditions for those plant species.…”

“…This paper is the second part of ecological modelling by Self-Organizing Feature Maps (SOFM) on classification of habitat quality (Stankiewicz and Kosiba 2009). It presents the results of calculated SOFM models in assessment of ordination and similarity of habitat conditions and the relations between soils, plants chemical properties and types of basaltoides according to TAS division (Total Alkali Silica).…”