Interspecific associations in phytosociological data sets: how do they change between local and regional scale?
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2004 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Plant Ecology |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | Online on SpringerLink |
| Field | Botany |
| Keywords | Ecological scale; numerical methods; phytosociology; plant communities; sociological species groups; vegetation survey |
| Description | Interspecific associations detected in phytosociological data sets sampled in local areas can reflect locally specific combinations of environmental factors and may thus differ from the interspecific associations existing on a regional scale. As a result, vegetation units derived from numerical classifications of local data sets can accurately reflect local environmental gradients, but their boundaries or spectra of diagnostic species must be frequently adjusted when transferred to the regional scale. Local vegetation classifications can be useful for some purposes, but regional classifications are superior, as they facilitate communication among the researchers from different areas. We demonstrated changes in interspecific associations between regional and local scale, using a data set of 14 589 relevés of herbaceous vegetation of the Czech Republic, and 16 local subsets of this national data set. We focused on sociological species groups, derived statistically in the national data set. Local data sets differed from the national data set to different extent. The results suggest that interspecific associations existing on regional scale are best reproduced in those local areas which have a high habitat heterogeneity or which have a central position along the major gradients existing on regional scale. |
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