Shaping Scientific Fundamentals of Anthropic Phytocenology as a Branch of Anthropogenic Landscape Studies

Abstract

The phenomena of adventitious and synanthropic flora can be considered both from biological positions - then they are studied as elements of phytocenosis and biocenosis as a whole, and from geographical ones – then the basic concept in the research becomes the landscape. Adventitious and synanthropic species are elements of biocenosis and landscape at the same time, but it is the landscape approach that makes it possible to highlight the above-mentioned scientific problem in the most complete way. Studies of adventitious and synanthropic phytocenoses are interdisciplinary. Due to the key role of a human bein in spreading the processes of adventitization, synanthropization and phytoinvasions, the scientific discipline that puts such studies in the center of attention is anthropic phytocenology. The methodological basis of anthropic phytocenological studies is the provisions of anthropogenic landscape science, modern ecology, noospherology, the concept of sustainable development, the doctrine of the interaction of nature and society, as well as the laws of dialectics, systemic and synergistic approaches, etc. Anthropic phytocenology is connected by genetic interdisciplinary connections with botany and ecology, in particular, phytocenology. Its object-subject sphere partially coincides with these sciences. In particular, specific (real) objects of research - plants – are connected with botany. Anthropic phytocenology combines with ecology the study of a conceptual object – connections and relations between elements of the ecosystem, namely – aboriginal and adventitious species. As for phytocenology, we consider anthropic phytocenology as one of its sections, which studies adventitious plant species and synanthropic phytocenoses. Information ties of anthropic phytocenology are manifested at its boundary with geography, transport technologies, and plant ecology. Thus, from the geography of plants, anthropic phytocenology takes data on the limitation of species to certain conditions of the geographical environment – geomorphological, climatic, etc. Thanks to the geography of transport, anthropic phytocenology receives information about the main directions of movement of plants, in particular by railway transport. From landscape science, anthropic phytocenology obtains data on the ratio of natural landscapes in which one or another species is aboriginal or adventitious. The study of transport technologies makes it possible to obtain information about some parameters of plant movement. Plant ecology provides insight into the mechanisms of competition between native and adventitious species in a given area. The commonality of the object of the research shows the interdisciplinary connections of anthropic phytocenology with anthropogenic landscape science, synecology. By the commonality of methods, anthropic phytocenology is connected with almost all earth sciences, in which research is impossible without observing objects and their fixation. Connections with geography are of particular importance, from which anthropic phytocenology borrows cartographic and – in part – mathematical methods. Anthropic phytocenology as a scientific discipline needs its own conceptual and terminological apparatus. Its components are, first of all, concepts and terms of landscape science in general and anthropogenic landscape science in particular, as well as plant ecology, especially phytocenology. The geographical component of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of anthropic phytocenology consists mainly of concepts and terms related to the category «landscape». Concepts expressing its structural components, such as «locality», «tract», «facies», are related to the latter. Of the concepts and terms used in plant ecology, those containing the words «aboriginal», «adventitious», «invasive», «synanthropic», etc., as well as «biotope», «biocenosis», «biogeocenosis», are related to anthropic phytocenology, «local growth», «ecological niche», «phytocenosis», etc. Keywords: adventitious flora, synanthropic flora, landscape, phytocenosis, interdisciplinary connections, conceptual and terminological apparatus.