Ancient Woodlands’ and Synanthropic Plants as Indicators of Maintenance of the Forest Communities in the Nature Reserves of the Oświęcim Basin

Abstract

<jats:p>The landscape of the Oświęcim Basin, naturally dominated by forest communities, has been strongly transformed due to the long-term activities of man. Across time and space, it has been stamped by pond management and agriculture to the highest degree. Despite such a strong transformation of the natural environment fragments of forests which reflect the peculiarities of forest vegetation of the macroregion still occur. These are the Żaki and the Przeciszów nature reserves. The goal of the phytosociological studies done within their borders was the assessment of the Tilio-Carpinetum phytocoenoses which dominate in the reserves, regarding their: maintenance, naturalness, anthropological changes and compliance to anthropopressure, as well as natural values. Therefore, analyses related to the share of: character species, ancient woodland indicators and synanthropes were performed for purposes of the study. It has been proposed that transformations of the forest communities be assessed using the new formula of floristic naturalness coefficient (WNF), based on the share of ancient woodland and synanthropic species.</jats:p>

Changing Land Use in Recent Decades and Its Impact on Plant Cover in Agricultural and Forest Landscapes in Poland

“…This is confirmed by studies in southern Poland (DZWONKO 2011;SKOWRONEK et al 2011;ŚWIERCZ 2011;TOWPASZ, STACHURSKA-SWAKOŃ 2011;WILCZEK et al 2011), south-eastern (CWENER, NOWAK 2011) and central (KIEDRZYŃSKI et al 2011, KUROWSKI et al 2011WOZIWODA, AMBROŻKIEWICZ 2011;WOZIWODA, KOMPERDA 2011;WOZIWODA, MICHALSKA-HEJDUK 2011) as well as north and western regions of Poland (ADAMOWSKI, BOMANOWSKA 2011;RATYŃSKA et al 2011;ZAŁUSKI 2011).…”

“…Advancing fragmentation of the landscape, and isolation of old forest patches is a vital aspect in the formation of species composition in forest Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/13/18 2:42 AM phytocenoses (DZWONKO 2011;WILCZEK et al 2011). Interesting results were provide the application of new measures and analysis methods of floristic transformations in forest phytocoenoses (WILCZEK et al 2011;SKOWRONEK et. al.…”