Abstract
Due to global climate change and increased forest transformation by humans, accounting for the dynamics of forest ecosystems is becoming a central problem in forestry. We reviewed the success of considering vegetation dynamics in the most influential ecological forest classifications in Russia, the European Union, and North America. Out of the variety of approaches to forest classification, only those that are widely used in forestry and forest inventory were selected. It was found that the system of diagnostic signs developed by genetic forest typology based on the time-stable characteristics of habitats as well as the developed concept of dynamic series of cenosis formation allows us to successfully take into account the dynamics of vegetation. While forest dynamics in European classifications is assessed at a theoretical level, it is also possible to assess forest dynamics in practice due to information obtained from EUNIS habitat classification. In ecological classifications in North America, the problem of vegetation dynamics is most fully solved with ecological site description (ESD), which includes potential vegetation and disturbance factors in the classification features. In habitat type classification (HTC) and biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification (BEC), vegetation dynamics is accounted based on testing the diagnostic species and other signs of potential vegetation for resistance to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Understanding of vegetation–environment associations is fundamental in forming proper forest management methods and improving existing classification structures. We believe that this topic is relevant as part of the ongoing search for new solutions within all significant forest ecological classifications.
Highlights
New data opportunities derived from available data sources, such as GIS and forest inventories, along with new hardware and software that create a new level of quality in analyzing data, demand a revision of traditional concepts and forest science theories to potentially develop new insights into methods of forest ecosystem classification and monitoring [4,5]
Vegetation dynamic assessment is based on the idea of dynamic combination of species within a community
We analyzed the available experience of using forest ecological classifications in assessing vegetation dynamics in Russia, the European Union, and North America
Summary
Accounting for the dynamics of the forest community is a key issue for all modern Russian ecological classification [5]. The use of genetic typology approaches for vegetation classifications reveal similarities between ecodynamic series with the same names in different growth conditions, which support the hypothesis concerning convergence of dynamic series [37]. Secondary plant communities growing in quite different conditions and derived from different primary coniferous forests display substantial physiognomic similarity [37,41], which is supported by works of Degteva [42] on typology of secondary plant communities in Komi taiga forests, where the author revealed specifics of changes in species and structure of edificatory and subordinate layers. Bilberry spruce forests have a wide ecological amplitude, but restoration series occur differently depending on differences between forest vegetation conditions and only similarities are displayed for primary forests [33] This fact demonstrates that vegetation features alone are not enough for classification of forest types.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
