Ecology typological assessment of forest vegetation of the North-Eastern Forest-Steppe of Ukraine

Abstract

Recently, significantly increases the need for a detailed study of various aspects of the modern natural, spontaneous and artificially generated phytodiversity as the main element of the formation and regeneration of natural ecotypes structural elements for building national ecological network. It is necessary to examine various aspects of the natural and spontaneous vegetation formed. Based on the ecological specifics of the North-Eastern Forest-Steppe of Ukraine, a detailed analysis of natural and artificially formed forests on the floodplain, pine terrace and plateau of the rivers of the Dnieper and Seversky Donets basins, as well as in ravine-beam systems 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 of the North-Eastern Forest-Steppe covered with forest vegetation is 336110.3 ha. The distribution of forest areas by edatopes is as follows: trophotopes — oak wood (220640.2 ha, 65.64%), sugruds (54739.2 ha, 16.29%), subors (52174.5 ha, 15.52%) and pine forests (8556.4 ha, 2.55%); hygrotopes — fresh conditions (282960.3 ha, 84.19%), dry (35576.7 ha, 10.59%), damp (12179.5 ha, 3.62%), moist (4634.3 ha, 1.38%), wet (749.0 ha, 0.22%) and very dry conditions (10.5 ha, 0.003%). There are 38 types of forests areas covered with forest vegetation, which are dominated by fresh maple-linden forest (183442.0 ha, 54.58%), a slightly smaller area occupied by fresh oak-pine forest (47040.9 ha, 14.00%) and linden-oak-pine sugrud (33999.3 ha, 10.12%), as well as dry maple-linden forest (28697.7 ha, 8.54%). The composition of forest-forming species is quite diverse and is represented by 60 species of woody and shrubby plants. The main forest-forming species is Quercus robur (190153.9 ha, 56.58%). Pinus sylvestris (86212.1 ha, 25.65%) and Fraxinus excelsior (20318.5 ha, 6.05%) have slightly smaller areas, all other species occupy small areas. Research a variety 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 and shrub plantations of the North-Eastern Forest-Steppe of Ukraine.