The spatial organization and diversity of eastern Mongolian steppes

Abstract

A survey of steppe ecosystems of eastern Mongolia, including the territory of the Eastern Steppe Station Tumen-Tsogt (in Sukhebator district), was conducted in 2008 under the program “Mongolian Ecosystem Monitoring” with the support of the Joint Russian-Mongolian Complex Biological Expedition of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Mongolian Academy of Sciences. An important part of monitoring, mapping enables one to identify qualitative and quantitative changes in ecosystem components and show the spatial distribution and orientation of the main natural and anthropogenic processes. Large-scale mapping of vegetation on the territory of the research station was carried out for the third time, at an approximate 20-year interval. The map of current vegetation (1 : 200000) shows the present-day coenotic diversity of steppe communities, including 29 groups of associations related to 18 formations; four groups of associations represent petrophytic steppe variants. The main types of heterogeneous vegetation structure, characteristic for different types of hummocky topographies, are also reflected on the map.