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Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast European context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns

BACKGROUND: Previous investigations carried out in ultramafic habitats emphasized the greater importance of site conditions over soil toxic metal content for vegetation composition. Very little is known about the floristic structure of the Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands and there is no in...

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Autores principales: Coldea, Gheorghe, Gafta, Dan, Negrean, Gavril, Stoica, Adrian Ilie, Hurdu, Bogdan-Iuliu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Nature Singapore 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9556682/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36222902
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40529-022-00355-8
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author Coldea, Gheorghe
Gafta, Dan
Negrean, Gavril
Stoica, Adrian Ilie
Hurdu, Bogdan-Iuliu
author_facet Coldea, Gheorghe
Gafta, Dan
Negrean, Gavril
Stoica, Adrian Ilie
Hurdu, Bogdan-Iuliu
author_sort Coldea, Gheorghe
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Previous investigations carried out in ultramafic habitats emphasized the greater importance of site conditions over soil toxic metal content for vegetation composition. Very little is known about the floristic structure of the Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands and there is no information on the local environmental drivers of their composition and coenotic features. Here, we aim to fill these knowledge gaps by referring to similar phytocoenoses described in the Balkan Peninsula and central Europe. In particular, we searched for: (i) floristic and ecological patterns supporting the classification and taxonomic assignment of these grasslands, and (ii) simple relationships between serpentine vegetation characteristics and its physiographic environment. A total of 120 phytosociological relevés, of which 52 performed in the Southern Carpathians, were analysed through cluster, ordination and regression procedures. RESULTS: Despite some floristic similarities with their Balkan counterparts, the Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands were clustered into four distinct groups, which were assigned to as many new syntaxa: Plantago serpentinae–Armerietum halleri, Asplenio serpentini–Achnatheretum calamagrostis, Minuartio frutescentis–Plantaginetum holostei and Sileno saxifragae–Plantaginetum holostei. The latter was best individualised through the occurrence of several Carpathian endemic taxa. The first two ordination axes were significantly related with the terrain slope/presence of xerophilous species and respectively, with site elevation/presence of calcifugous species. The total plant cover showed a unimodal relationship with respect to site elevation. While controlling for the effect of the sampled area, species richness showed a unimodal response to both elevation and slope of the terrain, although their effects were not singular. CONCLUSIONS: The syntaxonomic distinctiveness of the Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands is mainly supported by their overall species composition rather than regional differential species. The main limiting factors driving the composition, cover and species richness of all studied ultramafic grasslands are the water deficit at low elevation and on steep slopes, and the low soil fertility at higher elevations. Our results confirm the previous findings according to which physiographic conditions and, to a lesser extent, soil base nutrients are more important than heavy metal concentrations in structuring the ultramafic vegetation. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40529-022-00355-8.
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spelling pubmed-95566822022-10-14 Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast European context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns Coldea, Gheorghe Gafta, Dan Negrean, Gavril Stoica, Adrian Ilie Hurdu, Bogdan-Iuliu Bot Stud Original Article BACKGROUND: Previous investigations carried out in ultramafic habitats emphasized the greater importance of site conditions over soil toxic metal content for vegetation composition. Very little is known about the floristic structure of the Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands and there is no information on the local environmental drivers of their composition and coenotic features. Here, we aim to fill these knowledge gaps by referring to similar phytocoenoses described in the Balkan Peninsula and central Europe. In particular, we searched for: (i) floristic and ecological patterns supporting the classification and taxonomic assignment of these grasslands, and (ii) simple relationships between serpentine vegetation characteristics and its physiographic environment. A total of 120 phytosociological relevés, of which 52 performed in the Southern Carpathians, were analysed through cluster, ordination and regression procedures. RESULTS: Despite some floristic similarities with their Balkan counterparts, the Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands were clustered into four distinct groups, which were assigned to as many new syntaxa: Plantago serpentinae–Armerietum halleri, Asplenio serpentini–Achnatheretum calamagrostis, Minuartio frutescentis–Plantaginetum holostei and Sileno saxifragae–Plantaginetum holostei. The latter was best individualised through the occurrence of several Carpathian endemic taxa. The first two ordination axes were significantly related with the terrain slope/presence of xerophilous species and respectively, with site elevation/presence of calcifugous species. The total plant cover showed a unimodal relationship with respect to site elevation. While controlling for the effect of the sampled area, species richness showed a unimodal response to both elevation and slope of the terrain, although their effects were not singular. CONCLUSIONS: The syntaxonomic distinctiveness of the Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands is mainly supported by their overall species composition rather than regional differential species. The main limiting factors driving the composition, cover and species richness of all studied ultramafic grasslands are the water deficit at low elevation and on steep slopes, and the low soil fertility at higher elevations. Our results confirm the previous findings according to which physiographic conditions and, to a lesser extent, soil base nutrients are more important than heavy metal concentrations in structuring the ultramafic vegetation. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40529-022-00355-8. Springer Nature Singapore 2022-10-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9556682/ /pubmed/36222902 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40529-022-00355-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Article
Coldea, Gheorghe
Gafta, Dan
Negrean, Gavril
Stoica, Adrian Ilie
Hurdu, Bogdan-Iuliu
Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast European context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns
title Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast European context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns
title_full Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast European context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns
title_fullStr Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast European context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns
title_full_unstemmed Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast European context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns
title_short Southern Carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast European context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns
title_sort southern carpathian ultramafic grasslands within the central-southeast european context: syntaxonomic classification and overall eco-coenotic patterns
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9556682/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36222902
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40529-022-00355-8
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