Differentiation of vegetation in a saline grassland in the vicinity of Inowrocław soda plants at Mątwy

Abstract

In the course of two growing seasons (1992 and 1993) there was investigated the zonation of vegetation with reference to soil conditions at the saline grassland in the vicinity of Inowrocław Soda Plants at Mątwy town. In data analysis there were used: classification method - hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis and as well as two ordination techniques: Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA). As a result of the classification analysis five vegetation zones were distinguished, related to the following communities: community with <em>Festuca rubra</em>, <em>Potentillo Festucetum arundinaceae</em>, community with <em>Euphorbia lucida</em> and <em>Phragmites australis</em>, <em>Triglochino-Glaucetum maritimae</em> and <em>Puccinellio distantis-Salicornietum brachystachyae</em>. The ordination techniques used in the analysis have demonstrated that out of the measured soil properties the most essential part, in the formation of the grassland vegetation zonation, played the content of chloride ions (which was used here as the main salinity measure), while moisture and pH were of minor importance. All the measured environmental factors accounted for only a low percentage (26.5% in 1992 and 17.2% in 1993) of the total vegetation variation, what might suggest that besides chloride ions another factor might have affected the development of zonation

Micropattern of halophytic vegetation on technogenic soils affected by the soda industry

“…That is why the total salinity (expressed as EC e ) or chloride ion content (Cl -e ) plays an important role in the studied pattern. It is consistent with the results of other studies on vegetation-environment relations in inland saline areas (Piernik et al 1996;Piernik 2003;Piernik 2005;Zalatnai et al 2007;Piernik 2012).…”

“…Nevertheless, the area and the number of this type of habitats have significantly decreased over the past century (Wilkoń-Michalska 1963, 1970, 1986Trzcińska-Tacik 1988;Westhus et al 1997;Brandes 1999;Bank and Spitzenberg 2001;Pusch 2007). In anthropogenic areas, the reverse trend is observedexpansion of halophytic vegetation, i.e., increase of the area and number of species (Piernik et al 1996;Westhus et al 1997;Karasińska and Nienartowicz 1998;Grave 1999). In that way, an atypical refugium of some halophytic species develops, i.e., species that had already retreated from their natural sites of occurrence, e.g., Salicornia europaea L. and Aster tripolium L. in Poland Piernik 2004a, 2004b).…”

“…However, the anthropogenic stands of halophytes are not well recognized yet. There are limited studies on these habitats, mainly in Germany, Poland and Ukraine (e.g., Piernik et al 1996;Schimeyski and Podlacha 2000;Piernik 2006;Brock et al 2007;Piernik and Hulisz 2011;Hulisz and Piernik 2013;Woch and Trzcińska-Tacik 2014).…”

“…Compared to studies on coastal marshes, considerably less research has been carried out on inland saline areas, where tidal range does not play a role in species distribution. In general, it is recognized that salinity is the main factor affecting the vegetation distribution in inland salt marshes (Ungar 1974(Ungar , 1976Burchill and Kenkel 1991;Kenkel et al 1991;Piernik et al 1996;Cantero et al 1998aCantero et al , 1998bÁlvarez-Rogel et al 2000Álvarez-Rogel et al , 2001Piernik 2005Piernik , 2006Piernik , 2012. There are a few studies on the vegetation micropattern in inland saline sites (Tóth et al 1991;Zalatnai and Körmöczi 2004;Piernik 2006;Zalatnai et al 2007).…”

“…Figure 1 shows a flow diagram of the methodology for this study. The procedure consisted of several stages: selection of the study area based on previous research (Piernik et al 1996;Piernik and Hulisz 2011;Hulisz and Piernik 2013), field study, laboratory analysis and interpretation of soil and vegetation spatial variability, and creating a general statistical model of the relationships between analyzed environmental parameters. A detailed description of the methods is given below.…”