Database of Czech Forest Classification System

Zouhar, Václav

doi:10.7809/b-e.00137

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The understanding of temporal patterns in biodiversity is limited by the availability of long-term, large-scale and high-resolution data (Dornelas et al , 2013). The data stored in the Database of Czech Forest Classification System have all these characteristics (Zouhar 2012). Moreover, our study showed that their resurvey provides results robust to location uncertainty.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Vegetation resurvey is robust to plot location uncertainty

Kopecký

Macek

2015

Diversity and Distributions

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Aim-Resurveys of historical vegetation plots are increasingly used for the assessment of decadal changes in plant species diversity and composition. However, historical plots are usually relocated only approximately. This potentially inflates temporal changes and undermines results. Location-Temperate deciduous forests in Central Europe.Methods-To explore if robust conclusions can be drawn from resurvey studies despite location uncertainty, we compared temporal changes in species richness, frequency, composition and compositional heterogeneity between exactly and approximately relocated plots. We hypothesized that compositional changes should be lower and changes in species richness should be less variable on exactly relocated plots, because pseudo-turnover inflates temporal changes on approximately relocated plots.Results-Temporal changes in species richness were not more variable and temporal changes in species composition and compositional heterogeneity were not higher on approximately relocated plots. Moreover, the frequency of individual species changed similarly on both plot types.Main conclusions-The resurvey of historical vegetation plots is robust to uncertainty in original plot location and, when done properly, provides reliable evidence of decadal changes in plant communities. This provides important background for other resurvey studies and opens up the possibility for large-scale assessments of plant community change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We resurveyed historical vegetation plots stored in the Database of Czech Forest Classification System (Zouhar, 2012). This database contains over 30 000 plots sampled with comparable methodology in the Czech Republic since the 1950s.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vegetation resurvey is robust to plot location uncertainty

Kopecký

Macek

2015

Diversity and Distributions

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“…To explore temporal changes in the vegetation of sub‐montane forests, we resurveyed historical vegetation plots (Kapfer et al., ). The historical vegetation plots from the study region are available from a detailed study of regional forest vegetation (Pišta, ) and from the Database of Czech Forest Classification System (Zouhar, ). The aim of the original sampling was to document forest vegetation heterogeneity and to provide a basis for forest type classification (Pišta, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape‐scale vegetation homogenization in Central European sub‐montane forests over the past 50 years

Prach

Kopecký

2018

Applied Vegetation Science

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Questions: How did plant species richness and spatial heterogeneity of the vegetation change across sub-montane forests over the past 50 years? Did the vegetation changes reflect eutrophication, acidification and management changes, which the area underwent during the second half of the 20th century?Location: Ordinary managed forests sampled across 2500 km 2 of a typical Central European sub-montane landscape in the southern part of the Czech Republic. Methods:We resampled 156 quasi-permanent plots sampled in the 1950s-1970s and covering the whole range of forest vegetation in the region. We compared understorey plant species richness and community composition between the surveys and tested for temporal changes in the spatial heterogeneity (β-diversity) of vegetation.Results: Species richness and dissimilarity in species composition among plots decreased significantly between the surveys. The vegetation of the plots also changed significantly, but there were no clear directional changes across all plots. The vegetation homogenization was driven by local extinctions of specialist species, especially competitively weak species adapted to nutrient-poor conditions. Few generalist species expanded between the surveys. Conclusions:We found evidence of taxonomic homogenization of forest understoreys across a large sub-montane region. This vegetation homogenization was probably driven by complex landscape changes that took place in the last century. Varied traditional management regimes were replaced with largely uniform management, and the once spatially diverse landscape mosaic has become simpler. The resulting transition to species-poor and less variable vegetation was probably further accelerated by environmental eutrophication. Our results thus complement previous forest herb layer resurveys, which focused mostly on lowland forests and small nature reserves, and suggest that landscape-scale taxonomic homogenization is occurring across Central European forests. K E Y W O R D Sbeta diversity, biotic homogenization, eutrophication, forest understorey, landscape change, semi-permanent plots, species richness, temperate forests, vegetation resurvey 374 |

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“…The Czech forest classification system database [48], managed by the Forest Management Institute, contains almost 49,000 vegetation records and over 25,000 environmental and soil observations and measurements collected throughout the country (78,000 km 2 ) since 1950's until 2007. Due to the subjective sampling design (explained above), there is no regular distribution of sampling plots within the Czech territory.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Forest Classification in a Landscape-Level Framework: An Example from Central European Forests

Kusbach

Friedl

Zouhar

et al. 2017

Forests

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Abstract:Traditional land classifications developed on the basis of what was once prevailing expert knowledge have since largely become obsolete. We assessed expert knowledge based landscape-level units delineated in central European temperate forests: Natural Forest Areas (NFA) and Forest Vegetation Zones (FVZ). Our focus was determining to what degree these units reflect vegetation-environmental relationships. After considering as many as 49,000 plots with vegetation and 25,000 plots with environmental data within a territory of the Czech Republic, we analyzed 11,885 plots. We used multivariate statistics to discriminate between the landscape-level units. While NFAs performed extremely well, FVZ results were less successful. Classification of the environment provided better results than classification of vegetation for both the Hercynicum and Carpaticum phytogeographic part of the Czech Republic. Taking into account significance of the environment in our analysis, a delimitation of FVZs and similar vegetation-driven structures worldwide via explicit a priori stratification by tree species without consideration of environmental limits would not be supported by our analysis. We suggest not relying only on vegetation in classification analyses, but also including the significant environmental factors for direct classification of FVZ and units in particular in altered vegetation composition setting such as the central European forests. We propose a novel interpretation of FVZ via appropriate vegetation stratification throughout the environment used in conjunction with the zonal concept. Understanding of coarse-scaled vegetation-environmental relationships is not only fundamental in forest ecology and forest management, but is also essential for improving lower classification levels. Valuable expert knowledge should be combined with formal quantification, which is consistent with recent calls for advanced multidisciplinary ecological classifications in Europe and North America and for forming classifications in Asia.

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Database of Czech Forest Classification System

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Vegetation resurvey is robust to plot location uncertainty

Vegetation resurvey is robust to plot location uncertainty

Landscape‐scale vegetation homogenization in Central European sub‐montane forests over the past 50 years

Assessing Forest Classification in a Landscape-Level Framework: An Example from Central European Forests

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