The flora and vegetation of an old solvay process tip in Jaworzno (Upper Silesia, Poland)

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the flora, plant communities and substrates of an old solvay process spoil tip in Upper Silesia, Poland. In an area of 15 000 m² there are growing 136 vascular plant species. The flora is characterised by the preponderance of Asteraceae - species and long-lived perennial herbs, many of them coming from meadows and grasslands. Ninety-five percent of species are apophytes despite the anthropogenic origin of the site. A majority of species are associated with moderately dry, base-rich soils with low or moderate levels of nitrogen. The site is shown to be an important refuge for some protected species, montane species and other elements uncommon in the local flora. An analysis of a series of samples used a methodology based on the assessment of percentage cover of particular species and multivariate analysis based on TWINSPAN. Both suggested a relatively high overall similarity between the samples with minor variations associated with moister substrates.Elemental analysis and pH determinations of soil samples associated with the relevés revealed a narrow range of pH and an absence of any strong concentrations of heavy metals. A redundancy analysis of the soil-plant relationships suggested that the strongest trend of differentiation was most closely associated with a phosphate gradient, and the next strongest was pH and possibly waterlogging. The most species-rich vegetation was associated with low phosphate and high pH levels. The results could be interpreted to suggest that processes of soil development and plant succession are slow but nevertheless perceptible, with implications for future loss of diversity. The vegetation constitutes an assemblage essentially of one type showing only weak relationships with described vegetation types such as <em>Molinio-Arrhenatheretea</em> meadow, <em>Festuco-Brometea</em> grassland and <em>Caricetalia davallianae</em> mire. The results also suggest that the vegetation of the site is of considerable value for nature conservation. The site should be protected and be the subject of further research

Flora of spoil heaps after hard coal mining in Trzebinia (southern Poland): effect of substratum properties

“…In turn, it was lowest on heaps dominated by dust fraction with low content of calcium but a high content of coal, as in the case of culm and coal substrata. This relationship is corroborated by the results of COHN et al (2000) and WO NIAK (2010). The high number of plant species on humus substratum may be connected with the advanced age (20-30 years) of succession in these places.…”

“…This is a typical regularity for various types of post-industrial places, where primary succession on the bare substratum will occur, such as quarries, sandpits, sedimentation tanks, dumps of various industrial materials (e.g. JOCHIMSEN 1996;COHN et al 2000;GRODZIÑSKA et al 2001;ROSTAÑSKI 2006;WOCH 2007WOCH , 2012WO NIAK 2010).…”

Links in the functional diversity between soil microorganisms and plant communities during natural succession in coal mine spoil heaps

“…Each of these limits biological activity and therefore the development of diverse microflora in this environment is very slow (Frouz et al 2001;Urbanova´et al 2011). However, over time hard coal mine heaps, despite their adverse conditions, are effectively colonised by many plant and animal species, which promote the development of soil (Cohn et al 2001;Woz´niak et al 2003;Rostan´ski and Woz´niak 2007;Chmura et al 2011;Tropek et al 2012). The spontaneous colonisation by living organisms on post-industrial sites represents a model situation of de novo ecosystem development.…”

An application of the plant functional group concept to restoration practice on coal mine spoil heaps

“…However, over time hard coal mine spoil sites, despite their adverse conditions, are effectively colonized by plants and animals, which promote the development of vegetation. There are many studies on spontaneous succession on post-industrial sites from Central Europe (Cohn et al 2001;Rostan´ski and Woz´niak 2007;Frouz et al 2008;Rahmonov 2009;Chmura et al 2011;Rahmonov et al 2011;Kompała-Bąba and Bąba 2013;Chmura et al 2013), but still some of the processes occurring in these man-made environments are poorly understood especially in terms of their functional diversity Cabała et al 2004;Latzel et al 2011;Woz´niak et al 2011) and the ecosystem services they provide.…”