The age structure of the coepopulations of B<i>erberis</i><i>aquifolium</i> Purch in the Protected Areas of the Southern Coast of the Crimea

Abstract

On the basis of generally accepted and modern methods and approaches, the age structure of the coenopopulations of Berberis aquifolium in semi-natural and natural communities in Protected Areas of the Southern Coast of the Crimea with different categories of protection ("Yalta Mountain Forest", "Cape Martyan", "Nikita Botanical Gardens") has been studied. It was found that the species in the surveyed territories occurs in different types of relatively closed (0.6-0.8) tree-shrub communities, at an altitude of 120 to 530 m above the sea level, on the slopes of different exposures, with a steepness from 5 to 45°. All the described coenopopulations are normal, incomplete, with a left-hand spectrum, in three of them the absolute maximum falls on young generative (g 1 - up to 38%), in two - on virginal (v - 25-53%), in one - on middle-aged generative (g 2 - 25%) plants. The ontogenetic structure of the studied coenopopulations is represented by two types: single-vertex and bimodal, according to the A.A. Uranov's, O.V. Smirnova's classification; by three types: maturing, transitional and mature, according to the "delta-omega" classification. Three coenopopulations belong to the group of unstable, with a weak degree of self-support, two ones - to promising, with a moderate degree of self-support, one - to promising, with effective self-support. The values of the recovery index (1.0-2.5) in promising coenopopulations indicate a sufficient potential of the species to maintain its structure by seed reproduction.