Differentiation of vegetation in a saline grassland in the vicinity of Inowrocław soda plants at Mątwy

Abstract

In the course of two growing seasons (1992 and 1993) there was investigated the zonation of vegetation with reference to soil conditions at the saline grassland in the vicinity of Inowrocław Soda Plants at Mątwy town. In data analysis there were used: classification method - hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis and as well as two ordination techniques: Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA). As a result of the classification analysis five vegetation zones were distinguished, related to the following communities: community with <em>Festuca rubra</em>, <em>Potentillo Festucetum arundinaceae</em>, community with <em>Euphorbia lucida</em> and <em>Phragmites australis</em>, <em>Triglochino-Glaucetum maritimae</em> and <em>Puccinellio distantis-Salicornietum brachystachyae</em>. The ordination techniques used in the analysis have demonstrated that out of the measured soil properties the most essential part, in the formation of the grassland vegetation zonation, played the content of chloride ions (which was used here as the main salinity measure), while moisture and pH were of minor importance. All the measured environmental factors accounted for only a low percentage (26.5% in 1992 and 17.2% in 1993) of the total vegetation variation, what might suggest that besides chloride ions another factor might have affected the development of zonation.