Digital Mapping of Habitat for Plant Communities Based on Soil Functions: A Case Study in the Virgin Forest-Steppe of Russia

Nikolai Lozbenev,Maxim Bocharnikov,Daniil Kozlov,Maria Smirnova

doi:10.3390/soilsystems3010019

Nikolai Lozbenev, Maxim Bocharnikov + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/soilsystems3010019

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Journal: Soil Systems	Publication Date: Mar 9, 2019
Citations: 8	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute

Abstract

The spatial structure of the habitat for plant communities based on soil functions in virgin forest-steppe of the Central Russian Upland is the focus of this study. The objectives include the identification of the leading factors of soil function variety and to determine the spatial heterogeneity of the soil function. A detailed topographic survey was carried out on a key site (35 hectares), 157 soil, and 34 geobotanical descriptions were made. The main factor of soil and plant cover differentiation is the redistribution of soil moisture along the microrelief. Redistributed runoff value was modelled in SIMWE and used as a tool for spatial prediction of soils due to their role in a habitat for plant communities’ functional context. The main methods of the study are the multidimensional scaling and discriminant analysis. We model the composition of plant communities (accuracy is 95%) and Reference Soil Group (accuracy is 88%) due to different soil moisture conditions. There are two stable soil habitat types: mesophytic communities on the Phaeozems (with additional water runoff more than 80 mm) and xerophytic communities on Chernozems (additional runoff less than 55 mm). A transitional type corresponded to xero- mesophytic communities on the Phaeozems with 55–80 mm additional redistributed runoff value. With acceptable accuracy, the habitat for natural plant communities based on soil function model predicts the position of contrastingly different components of biota in relation to their soil moisture requirements within the virgin forest-steppe of the Central Russian Upland.

Highlights

The most important ecological function of the soil as a component of the environment is to maintain the balance and sustainability of the biosphere under the anthropogenic impact and climate change [1,2,3]
The habitat for natural plant communities based on soil function model predicts the position of contrastingly different components of biota in relation to their soil moisture requirements within the virgin forest-steppe of the Central Russian Upland
The direct methods for soil ecological functions evaluation are limited, that is the main cause why researchers focus on indirect indicators of the soil systems functioning: the soil properties—i.e., the chemical composition of the different soil phases [4,5,6,7], soil structure [4,8,9], etc.—and the properties of environment connected to the soil by material—energy interactions

Summary

Introduction

The most important ecological function of the soil as a component of the environment is to maintain the balance and sustainability of the biosphere under the anthropogenic impact and climate change [1,2,3]. The direct methods for soil ecological functions evaluation are limited, that is the main cause why researchers focus on indirect indicators of the soil systems functioning: the soil properties—i.e., the chemical composition of the different soil phases [4,5,6,7], soil structure [4,8,9], etc.—and the properties of environment connected to the soil by material—energy interactions The latter include the species composition and productivity of plant communities [10,11,12] and in a broader sense, serve as the basis for landscape indication when mapping hard-to-observe properties of a landscape from lightly observed factors.

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