The impact of northern red oak (Quercus rubra; Fagaceae) on the forest phytodiversity in Ukraine

Abstract

The impact of Quercus rubra on the plant diversity of native forests of Ukraine has been investigated. The plant communities of artificial plantations dominated by northern red oak have such general features as poor species composition, with projective coverage values of other species not exceeding 5%, and a simplified vertical structure of the tree layers. In natural forest plant communities with the participation of Q. rubra, there are no rare and typical nemoral dominant species, which results in disruption of consortial relations in ecosystems. Such changes are due to the biological and ecological peculiarities of this species, in particular, its dense crown, abundant biomass of leaves, which reduces lighting, and allelopathic properties; all those factors affect the physical and chemical characteristics of biotopes. Quercus rubra artificial plantations are more adaptive to changes of natural conditions and are able to withstand harsher winters and lack of precipitation. The ecological amplitude of this species is wide, and even with an increase in the average annual temperature by 3 °C most of the ecological indicators do not go beyond the optimum zone of the species, except for the soil moisture and thermal regime. The amplitudes of main indicators of ecological factors of temperate forests and Q. rubra artificial plantations overlap. The dominance of Q. rubra reduces the quality of ecosystem services of native forests. The high competitive advantages of Q. rubra are the reason for the impossibility of natural restoration of the typical broad-leaved or coniferous forests on those land plots where they were replaced by artificial plantations of northern red oak or its tree layers were formed as the results of the spontaneous distribution of this species. In the successions, the communities with the participation of northern red oak are potentially able to replace the native forest phytocoenoses.