Assessment of the Vascular Flora Conservation Through Specific Indices - A Comparison Study in Central Europe

Abstract

In almost all countries with a well-founded law system, species-targeted conservation has legal support and plays a fundamental role in the protection of the most threatened plants. However, even in countries with a long tradition of plant conservation, there is little knowledge about its effectiveness and there is little or no possibility to compare the results of this kind of protection in different countries. Conservation methods using numerical indicators seem especially not to have been developed enough. To make the strategies of plant protection more effective and efficient, the author attempts to propose some measures for evaluating the status of flora conservation in a given area. The proposed indicators could also be useful in analyses of the results of protection, seen as the synanthropo-dynamic state of the vegetation (e.g. the amount of Red-listed or threatened species). For example, sozophytes as a group of sensitive plants could play the role of indicators of environmental quality. The proposed indicators are as follows: conservation indicator (C), threat conservation indicator (CK), tanatophytisation indicator (R), sozophytisation indicator (W) and conservation effectiveness indicator (E).