Ecological and typological assessment of forest vegetation of the Middle Dnieper (Forest-steppe of Ukraine)

Abstract

The paper shows the importance of a detailed study of various aspects of modern phytodiversity as an essential element of preservation of natural ecotypes for building national ecological network in the system of pan-European network. To do this, it is necessary to explore various aspects of natural and spontaneously formed vegetation. Based on the ecological specifics of the Middle Dnieper (Forest-Steppe of Ukraine), a detailed analysis of natural and artificially formed forests on the Dnipro cliffs, in ravine-beam systems and on the Dnipro floodplain is required. Peculiarities of forest vegetation conditions, distribution of tree species and ecological conditions of their growth are given. According to forest management data, the area covered with forest vegetation is 251341.3 hectares. The distribution of forest areas by edatopes is as follows: trophotopes — subors (78083.2 hectares, 31.07%), sugruds (77232.6 hectares, 30.73%), oak wood (72520.6 hectares, 28.85%) and pine forests (23504.9 hectares, 9.35%); hygrotopes — fresh conditions (183792.4 hectares, 73.13%), dry (34938.5 hectares, 13.90%), damp (19038.7 hectares, 7.57%), moist (11401.1 hectares, 4.54%), wet (1896.0 hectares, 0.75%) and very dry conditions (274.6 hectares, 0.11%). There are 62 types of forests areas covered with forest vegetation, which are dominated by fresh oak-pine forest (68319.9 hectares, 27.18%) and hornbeam oak wood (32871.8 hectares, 13.08%), a slightly smaller area occupied by fresh pine forest (17568.3 hectares, 6.99%), hornbeam-oak-pine sugrud (16952.2 hectares, 6.74%), maple-linden forest (15144.4 hectares, 6.03%) hornbeam-pine (13775.4 hectares, 5.48%) and hornbeam (9334.3 hectares, 3.71%) sudibrovas and dry maple-linden forest (12810.9 hectares, 5.10%). The composition of forest-forming species is quite diverse and is represented by 71 species of woody and shrubby plants. The main forest-forming species are Pinus sylvestris (116592.9 hectares, 46.39%) and Quercus robur (60049.7 hectares, 23.89%). Robinia pseudoacacia (26406.0 hectares, 10.51%), Alnus glutinosa (11391.7 hectares, 4.53%) and Fraxinus excelsior (7835.5 hectares, 3.12%) have slightly smaller areas, all other species occupy small areas. Identifying all the diversity of forest habitats will provide an opportunity to plan the conservation, reproduction and protection of phytodiversity, including species of sozophytes from different conservation lists, as well as to balance the provision of ecosystem services by tree plantations of the Middle Dnieper.