ECO-GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES OF LICHENS OF THE STEPPE ZONE OF THE SOUTHWEST OF UKRAINE

Abstract

Regularities of geographical spread of lichens of the steppe zone of the Southwest of Ukraine were established. It was shown that lichen biota is divided into 7 ecological-geographical groups: multizonal (62 species, or 30.2%) , arid (56 species, or 27.3%), nemoral (46 species, or 22.4%), boreal (14 species, or 6.8%), oceanic (11 species, or 5.4%), montan (8 species, or 3.9%) and arctic-alpine (2 species, or 1%). Because of lack of information as to geographical spread 6 species of lichens (2.9%) were referred to the group of unidentified ecological-geographical group. Characteristic features of lichen biota are demonstrated by arid lichens with the Mediterranean and European areal types, which testifies to an essential role of the Mediterranean region in formation of the territory lichen biota. Species with multiregional areal type, 53%, dominate in the territory lichen biota. The main quantity of multizonal, nemoral and boreal species of lichens have multiregional areal type, while considerable quantity of arid and oceanic species of lichens have intra-Holarctic areal types. The fact that only 25% of species have intra-Holarctic and 22% - Holarctic areal type testify to relatively small specificity of lichen biota of the studied territory.