Rare shrub communities of the forest belt in Kuznetskiy Alatau Nature Reserve

"Kuznetskiy Alatau" Nature Reserve occupies about 400 thousand hectares in the central part of the western macroslope of the submeridional mountain range of the same name. It includes the middle and upper parts of the forest belt and high-mountain belt up to the crest. Climatically, it is an area of hyper humid climate with annual amount of precipitations from 700 up to 2000 mm depending on elevation. Vegetation of the forest belt predominantly consists of coniferous forests with Siberian fir (Abies sibirica) as main dominant. Shrub communities in the forest belt occur in small patches in habitats which are not suitable for the forest development. Usually it is willow shrubs on floodplains or low-shrub communities on screes. In the subalpine belt above tree-line shrubs there is one of dominant vegetation types together with tall-herbaceous vegetation. In this case the main dominants are Betula rotundifolia and Salix glauca. The aim of our work was to describe new original types of shrub communities in the course of geobotanical survey in the Chernaya Usa river basin in the most eastern part of the nature reserve. We conducted a geobotanical survey in mid-September 2014. Before field work we analyzed satellite images of high resolution (RapidEye) in order to determine areas which are similar by color, brightness and texture. In field we visited all types of areas and described vegetation by standard method. In total, we made 86 full and short releves. Sampling plots were 25x25 m for a forest and 10x10 m for a shrub and herbaceous vegetation. Besides, we determined such parameters as species coverage, coordinates, elevation, inclination and slope orientation for each plot. We carried out syntaxonomical analysis by IBIS 6.2 program. We decribed two types of shrub communities on association level. Their prodromus is: Class Mulgedio-Aconitetea Hadac et Klika in Klika et Hadac 1944 Ordung Trollio-Сrepidetalia sibiricae Guinochet ex Chytry et al. 1993 Alliance Trollio asiaticae-Crepidion sibiricae Guinochet ex Chytry et al. 1993 Association Doronico altaici-Duschekietum fruticosae ass. nov. hoc loco Alliance Triseto sibiricae-Aconition septentrionalis Ermakov, Shaulo et Maltseva 2000 Association Filipendulo ulmariae-Spiraetum mediae ass. nov. hoc loco Alder communities with shrubby alder (Duschekia fruticosa) occur in the upper part of the forest belt just below the tree-line. The shrub layer is dense and about 4-6 m high. The undergrowth is represented by tall herbaceous summer-green perennials. Their habitats are too wet for the forest development and merged with coniferous forest and tall-herbaceous communities. Another type occurs in the middle part of the forest belt on the high floodplain of the Chernaya Usa river. The main dominant is Spiraea media up to 2 m high. The main limiting factors for the forest development are periodical flood events. Both types are rare and not encountered on this territory before.

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