Browsing by Author "Mucina, Ladislav"

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    Description and validation of some European forest syntaxa – a supplement to the EuroVegChecklist
    (De Gruyter Open, 2016) Willner, Wolfgang; Solomeshch, Ayzik; Carni, Andraz; Bergmeier, Erwin; Ermakov, Nikolai; Mucina, Ladislav
    In this paper we present nomenclatural adjustments and validations of syntaxa of the forest vegetation of Europe. We introduce a new, valid name of the class of nemoral coniferous or mixed forests (Asaro europaei-Abietetea sibiricae) replacing the deciduous Carpino-Fagetea in the easternmost Europe and Siberia. We describe two new orders for birch and birch-poplar woodlands, formerly included in the Betulo pendulae-Populetalia tremulae. We validate the names of two alliances for the deciduous forests of the Southern Urals and the name of an alliance for hemiboreal forest swamps. The suballiance Ostryo-Tilienion, coined to accommodate the xerothermophilous ravine forests of SE Europe, is here elevated to the rank of alliance. Finally, we validate the name Quercion alnifoliae (evergreen oak forests of Cyprus).
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    Disentangling vegetation diversity from climate–energy and habitat heterogeneity for explaining animal geographic patterns
    (Wiley Open Access, 2016) Jimenez-Alfaro, Borja; Chytry, Milan; Mucina, Ladislav; Grace, James B.; Rejmanek, Marcel
    Broad-scale animal diversity patterns have been traditionally explained by hypotheses focused on climate–energy and habitat heterogeneity, without con- sidering the direct influence of vegetation structure and composition. However, integrating these factors when considering plant–animal correlates still poses a major challenge because plant communities are controlled by abiotic factors that may, at the same time, influence animal distributions. By testing whether the number and variation of plant community types in Europe explain coun- try-level diversity in six animal groups, we propose a conceptual framework in which vegetation diversity represents a bridge between abiotic factors and ani- mal diversity. We show that vegetation diversity explains variation in animal richness not accounted for by altitudinal range or potential evapotranspiration, being the best predictor for butterflies, beetles, and amphibians. Moreover, the dissimilarity of plant community types explains the highest proportion of varia- tion in animal assemblages across the studied regions, an effect that outper- forms the effect of climate and their shared contribution with pure spatial variation. Our results at the country level suggest that vegetation diversity, as estimated from broad-scale classifications of plant communities, may contribute to our understanding of animal richness and may be disentangled, at least to a degree, from climate–energy and abiotic habitat heterogeneity.
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    The Drabo corymbosae-Papaveretea dahliani − a new vegetation class of the High Arctic polar desert
    (De Gruyter Open, 2016) Daniels, Fred J. A.; Elvebakk, Arve; Matveyeva, Nadezhda V.; Mucina, Ladislav
    A new class and a new order (Drabo corymbosae-Papaveretea dahliani and Saxifrago oppositifoliae-Papaveretalia dahliani) have been described, and the Papaverion dahliani validated. This is vegetation of zonal habitats in lowlands of the High Arctic subzone A (or Arctic herb, cushion forb or polar desert subzone) and of ecologically equivalent sites at high altitudes on the mountain plateaus of the High Arctic. The new class spans three continents – North America (Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Greenland), Europe (parts of Svalbard and Franz Josef Land), and Asia, including northern regions of Chelyuskin Peninsula (Taymir Peninsula), Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago and De Longa Islands.
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    EUNIS Habitat Classification: Expert system, characteristic species combinations and distribution maps of European habitats
    (2020-07) Chytry, Milan; Tichy, Lubomir; Hennekens, Stephan M.; Knollova, Ilona; Janssen, John A. M.; Rodwell, John S.; Peterka, Tomas; Marceno, Corrado; Landucci, Flavia; Danihelka, Jiri; Hajek, Michal; Dengler, Jurgen; Novak, Pavel; Zukal, Dominik; Jimenez-Alfaro, Borja; Mucina, Ladislav; Abdulhak, Sylvain; Acic, Svetlana; Agrillo, Emiliano; Attorre, Fabio; Bergmeier, Erwin; Biurrun, Idoia; Boch, Steffen; Boloni, Janos; Bonari, Gianmaria; Braslavskaya, Tatiana; Bruelheide, Helge; Campos, Juan Antonio; Carni, Andraz; Casella, Laura; Cuk, Mirjana; Custerevska, Renata; De Bie, Els; Delbosc, Pauline; Demina, Olga; Didukh, Yakiv; Dite, Daniel; Dziuba, Tetiana; Ewald, Jorg; Gavilan, Rosario G.; Gegout, Jean-Claude; del Galdo, Gian Pietro Giusso; Golub, Valentin; Goncharova, Nadezhda; Goral, Friedemann; Graf, Ulrich; Indreica, Adrian; Isermann, Maike; Jandt, Ute; Jansen, Florian; Jansen, Jan; Jaskova, Anni; Jirousek, Martin; Kacki, Zygmunt; Kalnikova, Veronika; Kavgacı, Ali; Khanina, Larisa; Korolyuk, Andrey Yu.; Kozhevnikova, Mariya; Kuzemko, Anna; Kuzmic, Filip; Kuznetsov, Oleg L.; Laiviņs, Maris; Lavrinenko, Igor; Lavrinenko, Olga; Lebedeva, Maria; Lososova, Zdenka; Lysenko, Tatiana; Maciejewski, Lise; Mardari, Constantin; Marinsek, Aleksander; Napreenko, Maxim G.; Onyshchenko, Viktor; Perez-Haase, Aaron; Pielech, Remigiusz; Prokhorov, Vadim; Rasomavicius, Valerijus; Rojo, Maria Pilar Rodriguez; Rusina, Solvita; Schrautzer, Joachim; Sibik, Jozef; Silc, Urban; Skvorc, Zeljko; Smagin, Viktor A.; Stancic, Zvjezdana; Stanisci, Angela; Tikhonova, Elena; Tonteri, Tiina; Uogintas, Domas; Valachovic, Milan; Vassilev, Kiril; Vynokurov, Denys; Willner, Wolfgang; Yamalov, Sergey; Evans, Douglas; Lund, Mette Palitzsch; Spyropoulou, Rania; Tryfon, Eleni; Schaminee, Joop H. J.
    Abstract: Aim: The EUNIS Habitat Classification is a widely used reference framework for European habitat types (habitats), but it lacks formal definitions of individual habitats that would enable their unequivocal identification. Our goal was to develop a tool for assigning vegetation-plot records to the habitats of the EUNIS system, use it to classify a European vegetation-plot database, and compile statistically-derived characteristic species combinations and distribution maps for these habitats. Location: Europe. Methods: We developed the classification expert system EUNIS-ESy, which contains definitions of individual EUNIS habitats based on their species composition and geographic location. Each habitat was formally defined as a formula in a computer language combining algebraic and set-theoretic concepts with formal logical operators. We applied this expert system to classify 1,261,373 vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and other databases. Then we determined diagnostic, constant and dominant species for each habitat by calculating species-to-habitat fidelity and constancy (occurrence frequency) in the classified data set. Finally, we mapped the plot locations for each habitat. Results: Formal definitions were developed for 199 habitats at Level 3 of the EUNIS hierarchy, including 25 coastal, 18 wetland, 55 grassland, 43 shrubland, 46 forest and 12 man-made habitats. The expert system classified 1,125,121 vegetation plots to these habitat groups and 73,188 to other habitats, while 63,064 plots remained unclassified or were classified to more than one habitat. Data on each habitat were summarized in factsheets containing habitat description, distribution map, corresponding syntaxa and characteristic species combination. Conclusions: EUNIS habitats were characterized for the first time in terms of their species composition and distribution, based on a classification of a European database of vegetation plots using the newly developed electronic expert system EUNIS-ESy. The data provided and the expert system have considerable potential for future use in European nature conservation planning, monitoring and assessment.
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    Impact of ecological redundancy on the performance of machine learning classifiers in vegetation mapping
    (Wiley Open Access, 2017) Macintyre, Paul D.; Van Niekerk, Adriaan; Dobrowolski, Mark P.; Tsakalos, James L.; Mucina, Ladislav
    Vegetation maps are models of the real vegetation patterns and are considered important tools in conservation and management planning. Maps created through traditional methods can be expensive and time-consuming, thus, new more efficient approaches are needed. The prediction of vegetation patterns using machine learning shows promise, but many factors may impact on its performance. One important factor is the nature of the vegetation–environment relationship assessed and ecological redundancy. We used two datasets with known ecological redundancy levels (strength of the vegetation–environment relationship) to evaluate the performance of four machine learning (ML) classifiers (classification trees, random forests, support vector machines, and nearest neighbor). These models used climatic and soil variables as environmental predictors with pretreatment of the datasets (principal component analysis and feature selection) and involved three spatial scales. We show that the ML classifiers produced more reliable results in regions where the vegetation– environment relationship is stronger as opposed to regions characterized by redundant vegetation patterns. The pretreatment of datasets and reduction in prediction scale had a substantial influence on the predictive performance of the classifiers. The use of ML classifiers to create potential vegetation maps shows promise as a more efficient way of vegetation modeling. The difference in performance between areas with poorly versus well-structured vegetation–environment relationships shows that some level of understanding of the ecology of the target region is required prior to their application. Even in areas with poorly structured vegetation–environment relationships, it is possible to improve classifier performance by either pretreating the dataset or reducing the spatial scale of the predictions.
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    Naturalization of European plants on other continents : the role of donor habitats
    (National Academy of Sciences, 2019) Kalusova, Veronika; Chytry, Milan; Van Kleunen, Mark; Mucina, Ladislav; Dawson, Wayne; Essl, Franz; Kreft, Holger; Pergl, Jan; Weigelt, Patrick; Winter, Marten; Pysek, Petr
    The success of European plant species as aliens worldwide is thought to reflect their association with human-disturbed environments. However, an explicit test including all human-made, seminatural and natural habitat types of Europe, and their contributions as donor habitats of naturalized species to the rest of the globe, has been missing. Here we combine two databases, the European Vegetation Checklist and the Global Naturalized Alien Flora, to assess how human influence in European habitats affects the probability of naturalization of their plant species on other continents. A total of 9,875 native European vascular plant species were assigned to 39 European habitat types; of these, 2,550 species have become naturalized somewhere in the world. Species that occur in both human-made habitats and seminatural or natural habitats in Europe have the highest probability of naturalization (64.7% and 64.5% of them have naturalized). Species associated only with human-made or seminatural habitats still have a significantly higher probability of becoming naturalized (41.7% and 28.6%, respectively) than species confined to natural habitats (19.4%). Species associated with arable land and human settlements were recorded as naturalized in the largest number of regions worldwide. Our findings highlight that plant species’ association with native-range habitats disturbed by human activities, combined with broad habitat range, play an important role in shaping global patterns of plant invasions.
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    Phylogenetic structure of alien plant species pools from European donor habitats
    (John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2021) Kalusova, Veronika; Cubino, Josep Padulles; Fristoe, Trevor S.; Chytry, Milan; Van Kleunen, Mark; Dawson, Wayne; Essl, Franz; Kreft, Holger; Mucina, Ladislav; Pergl, Jan; Pysek, Petr; Weigelt, Patrick; Winter, Marten; Lososova, Zdenka
    Aim: Many plant species native to Europe have naturalized worldwide. We tested whether the phylogenetic structure of the species pools of European habitats is related to the proportion of species from each habitat that has naturalized outside Europe (habitat’s donor role) and whether the donated species are more phylogenetically related to each other than expected by chance. Location: Europe (native range), the rest of the world (invaded range). Time period: Last c. 100 years. Major taxa studied: Angiospermae. Methods: We selected 33 habitats in Europe and analysed their species pools, including 9,636 plant species, of which 2,293 have naturalized outside Europe. We assessed the phylogenetic structure of each habitat as the difference between the observed and expected mean pairwise phylogenetic distance (MPD) for (a) the whole species pool and (b) subgroups of species that have naturalized outside Europe and those that have not. We used generalized linear models to test for the effects of the phylogenetic structure and the level of human influence on the habitat’s donor role.
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    Plant communities along the Eerste River, Western Cape, South Africa : community descriptions and implications for restoration
    (AOSIS Publishing, 2013) Meek, Clifton S.; Richardson, David M.; Mucina, Ladislav
    Riparian plant communities fulfil many functions, including the provision of corridors linking protected areas and other zones of high conservation value. These habitats across much of South Africa’s Cape Floristic Region, especially in the lowlands, have been heavily impacted and degraded by human activities. There is increasing interest in the restoration of degraded riparian zones and the ecosystem services they provide to enhance the conservation value of landscapes. Previous studies of riparian vegetation in the Cape Floristic Region focused on pristine headwater systems, and little is known about human-impacted communities that make up most of the riparian vegetation in downstream areas. More information is needed on the composition of these plant communities to establish a baseline for management intervention. The riparian zone of the Eerste River in South Africa’s Western Cape province provides a good opportunity to study the features of riparian vegetation along the entire gradient, from pristine vegetation in a protected area through different levels of human-mediated degradation. Riparian vegetation was surveyed in 150 plots along the entire length of the Eerste River (ca. 40 km). Data were analysed using the vegetation classification and analysis software package JUICE. Final groupings were plotted onto a two-dimensional detrended correspondence analysis plane to check the position of the communities in the reduced multidimensional space. Ten distinct plant communities were identified, including several novel communities dominated by alien plant species. Descriptions of each plant community are presented. Diagnostic, constant and dominant species are listed and the major structural and ecological characteristics of each community are described. Conservation implications: Major changes to hydrological and soil properties, nutrient dynamics and disturbance regimes and plant species composition along sections of the riparian zone mean that restoration of many of these habitats to their historic condition is not feasible. However, several native plant species that provide key ecosystem services persist in and adjacent to transformed communities, offering substantial opportunities for restoration to achieve certain goals.
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    Quantifying the effects of ecological constraints on trait expression using novel trait-gradient analysis parameters
    (Wiley Open Access, 2017) Ottaviani, Gianluigi; Tsakalos, James L.; Keppel, Gunnar; Mucina, Ladislav
    Complex processes related to biotic and abiotic forces can impose limitations to assembly and composition of plant communities. Quantifying the effects of these constraints on plant functional traits across environmental gradients, and among communities, remains challenging. We define ecological constraint (Ci) as the combined, limiting effect of biotic interactions and environmental filtering on trait expression (i.e., the mean value and range of functional traits). Here, we propose a set of novel parameters to quantify this constraint by extending the trait‐gradient analysis (TGA) methodology. The key parameter is ecological constraint, which is dimensionless and can be measured at various scales, for example, on population and community levels. It facilitates comparing the effects of ecological constraints on trait expressions across environmental gradients, as well as within and among communities. We illustrate the implementation of the proposed parameters using the bark thickness of 14 woody species along an aridity gradient on granite outcrops in southwestern Australia. We found a positive correlation between increasing environmental stress and strength of ecological constraint on bark thickness expression. Also, plants from more stressful habitats (shrublands on shallow soils and in sun‐exposed locations) displayed higher ecological constraint for bark thickness than plants in more benign habitats (woodlands on deep soils and in sheltered locations). The relative ease of calculation and dimensionless nature of Ci allow it to be readily implemented at various scales and make it widely applicable. It therefore has the potential to advance the mechanistic understanding of the ecological processes shaping trait expression. Some future applications of the new parameters could be investigating the patterns of ecological constraints (1) among communities from different regions, (2) on different traits across similar environmental gradients, and (3) for the same trait across different gradient types.
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    Semi-automated segment generation for geographic novelty detection using edge and area metrics
    (CONSAS Conference, 2012) Fourie, Christoff; Van Niekerk, Adriaan; Mucina, Ladislav
    An approach to generating accurate image segments for land-cover mapping applications is to model the process as an optimisation problem. Area-based empirical discrepancy metrics are used to evaluate instances of generated segments in the search process. An edge metric, called the pixel correspondence metric (PCM), is evaluated in this approach as a fitness function for segmentation algorithm free-parameter tuning. The edge metric is able to converge to user-provided reference segments in an earth observation mapping problem when adequate training data are available. Two common metaheuristic search functions were tested, namely particle swarm optimisation (PSO) and differential evolution (DE). The edge metric is compared with an area-based metric, regarding classification results of the land-cover elements of interests for an arbitrary problem. The results show the potential of using edge metrics, as opposed to area metrics, for evaluating segments in an optimisation-based segmentation algorithm parameter-tuning approach.
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    The South African National Vegetation Database : history, development, applications, problems and future
    (Academy of Science of South Africa, 2012) Rutherford, Micheal C.; Mucina, Ladislav; Powrie, Leslie W.
    Southern Africa has been recognised as one of the most interesting and important areas of the world from an ecological and evolutionary point of view. The establishment and development of the National Vegetation Database (NVD) of South Africa enabled South Africa to contribute to environmental planning and conservation management in this floristically unique region. In this paper, we aim to provide an update on the development of the NVD since it was last described, near its inception, more than a decade ago. The NVD was developed using the Turboveg software environment, and currently comprises 46 697 vegetation plots (relevés) sharing 11 690 plant taxa and containing 968 943 species occurrence records. The NVD was primarily founded to serve vegetation classification and mapping goals but soon became recognised as an important tool in conservation assessment and target setting. The NVD has directly helped produce the National Vegetation Map, National Forest Type Classification, South African National Biodiversity Assessment and Forest Type Conservation Assessment. With further development of the NVD and more consistent handling of the legacy data (old data sets), the current limitations regarding certain types of application of the data should be significantly reduced. However, the use of the current NVD in multidisciplinary research has certainly not been fully explored. With the availability of new pools of well-trained vegetation surveyors, the NVD will continue to be purpose driven and serve the needs of biological survey in pursuit of sustainable use of the vegetation and flora resources of the southern African subcontinent.
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    Thesium nautimontanum, a new species of Thesiaceae (Santalales) from South Africa
    (Pensoft Publishers, 2018) Garcia, Miguel Angel; Nickrent, Daniel L.; Mucina, Ladislav
    Thesium nautimontanum, a new species of Thesiaceae (Santalales) from South Africa