Assessment of Grassland Habitats on the Popielno Peninsula by Phytoindication Methods

Species Diversity in Grassland Communities Under Different Habitat Conditions

“…It should be stressed that habitat conditions, except for soil moisture content, varied within a relatively narrow range, which is presented in a synthetic form in Table 9. The continentality index was disregarded in the assessment, because in our previous study (JASTRZĘBSKA et al 2007) it was found to be nearly constant in all communities; therefore, no significant correlations were expected between this index and the characteristics of phytocenoses. An analysis of the entire experimental material (with no division into groups) revealed that species diversity, evenness and total cover in communities increased with an improvement in light conditions, and decreased with a rise in the indices of temperature, soil moisture content, soil trophic state, soil particle size distribution and soil organic matter content.…”

“…A total of 194 phytosociological relevés were carried out by the Braun--Blanquet technique in permanent grasslands in the northern part of the Popielno Peninsula. The environmental and geographic characteristics of the research area can be found in a paper by JASTRZĘBSKA et al (2007). The phytosociological relevés provided a basis for computing the values of biological indices.…”

“…Coefficients of simple correlation were used to present relationships between the indices of diversity, evenness and domination and the synthetic indices of habitat conditions (L -light, T -temperature, W -soil moisture content, Tr -trophic state of soil/waters, R -soil reaction, D -soil particle size distribution, H -soil organic matter content). The latter were computed referring to the ecological indicator values (ZARZYCKI et al 2002) and were presented in the earlier work of JASTRZĘBSKA et al (2007). Based on the Shannon-Wiener index and the synthetic indices of habitat conditions, phytosociological relevés representing particular phytocenoses were grouped into clusters by the Ward method (FILIPIAK, WILKOS 1998).…”