Relationships between soil and plant communities distribution throughout primary succession in deltaic plains of Gölyazi Natural Reserved Area (Terme/Samsun, Turkey)

Abstract

This study has been carried out to examine the driving forces of succession and the vegetation and pedological factors relationships, throughout primary successional processes in deltaic plain areas in Golyazi Natural Reserved Area (Black Sea coast of Turkey). Determined to process and mechanisms of primary succession patterns, we analyzed cover-abundance of plant species and soil data in plots using multivariate classification (TWINSPAN) and ordination (DCA and CCA) techniques. The results of TWINSPAN indicated that the sample plots could be classified into six plant communities which belong to different succession stages and representing three successional main phase. It was identified that two communities belong to early mean phase, three communities belong to intermediate phase, and one community belongs to late main phase. We also measured 16 variables of soil in each community to examine the driving forces of succession and the vegetation and pedological factors relationships. The findings obtained from DCA and CCA analysis suggested that the most important environmental factors are affecting the process of succession are local microtopography, water table depth, EC, organic matter (%), CaCO3 (%), sNa and silt (%) of soil.