ABSTRACT. Albania is a small country of exceptional biodiversity. What is exceptional (at the European level) about this biodiversity is not so much in the numbers as the extensive presence of relict and paleoendemic elements. The flora of Albania includes species such as Pinus peuce, whose more close relatives are in North America, Forsythia europaea, a species belonging to a genus which is mainly distributed in East Asia, or the rare Dioscorea balcanica, related to subtropical species. Albania is exceptional not only for his flora but also for its political history. Albania has a very old language and population. Albanian language represents its own branch in the Indo-European language, with many peculiar grammatical features, and the population is probably related to the ancient Illyrians that inhabited the east coast of Adria at the times of Romans. Albania was, for most of its history, part of big empires, the Roman, the Byzantine and the Ottoman empires. It gained its independence in 1912, and after a short period of relationships with Italy, after the second World War a communist regime of exceptional strictness began. In this period all the relationship with other European countries were broken and Albania was completely isolated. After the fall of the regime in 1990, a period of unrest followed. Fear, blood, and uncertainty were the norm for Albanian people in those terrible days. Only gradually, normality came back and eventually in 2014 it became officially candidate to the European Union. The long period of political isolation of Albania had dramatic consequences for the botanical exploration of Albania. The foundations of Albanian botany were laid down at the beginning of the 20th century by Antonio Baldacci, an Italian botanist that described the diversity of the Albanian flora with several travels to this country, and Friedrich Markgraf, a German botanist who outlined the main features of plant geography of Albania. After this seminal contribution, a long period of silence followed, with rare exceptions. Consequently, Albania was, until recently, very poorly known. By the opening of the country to the rest of the world, a generation of intrepid Albanian botanist began to collaborate with foreign scientists and the knowledge of Albanian flora and vegetation rapidly rose. Nonetheless, much has still to be done. Probably, dozens of endemic plant species have yet to be discovered or recognized, and the phytosociological knowledge, although largely improved, lacks sometimes in details. In this context, it is interesting the story of the Albanian phytosociological database, in the framework of EVA project. In ten years of exploration by Giuliano Fanelli and Michele De Sanctis in collaboration with the outstanding Albanian colleagues Ermelinda Mahmutaj, Ermelinda Gjeta, Lulëzim Shuka, Petrit Hoda, Marjol Meco and others, a database of about 2000 relevés were gathered, exploring all the main parts of this rough and mountainous country. On the base of this base of data, it was possible to revaluate the main features of Albanian phytogeography, which were laid down as said above by the studies of Markgraf. The main feature of Albania is the fact that in this country the Mediterranean and the Central European regions meet. This transitional nature results in two main lines, dividing the flora and vegetation of Albania: a line that divides the inner part of Albania with a Submediterranean-Central European character, and the Mediterranean coastal belt; and a second line that divides the North from the South, the latter with important relationships with Northern Greece.

Markgraf recognized four altitudinal belts: the Mediterranean, with vegetation dominated by maquis or shiblijak; the Supramediterranean belt, with Quercus cerris-Quercus frainetto trockenwälder, the montane belt with beech or pine forest and the alpine belts with alpine grasslands mainly dominated by different species of Selseria. The composition of the flora is characterized by the co-presence of Mediterranean, Eurasiatic, European and Balkan species in equal proportions. The Mediterranean species decrease with altitude but remain important in all parts of Albania. The endemic element is not exceptionally represented but it must be taken into account that probably many more endemic species will be discovered in the future. The endemic element is mainly related to one of the outstanding features of Albania, the presence of large extensions of serpentines, with many endemic and subendemic species such as Bornmuellera baldaccii, Festucopsis serpentinii, Sanguisorba albanica, Euphorbia glabriflora, Forsythia europaea etc. In the south, very important centres of endemisms are the coastal limestone massifs, in particular the Llogora-Çika and Tomorr, with exceptional endemics such as Astragalus autranii, Sanguisorba albanica and Reichardia albanica. Albania is trendy. The inclusions of the Albanian botany in the European context goes hand in hand with the opening of the country to the European Union and the development of an important ecotourism and environmental movement in Albania. Tourists are beginning to flock into Albania, either to visit the cool capital Tirana or to climb the beautiful mountains.

ABSTRACT. Rhynchospora fusca is a suboceanic boreo-temperate species. In Latvia, four sites are known, and all are state protected. The study aims to describe and classify plant communities with R. fusca in Latvia. Formal definitions of fen alliances were used in classification at the alliance level and cluster analysis was used to classify vegetation at the association level. Similarly, as in other parts of its distribution range, R. fusca grows in a shallow nutrient-poor lake, fen, and periodically flooded humid dune slacks. In the lake, it forms monodominant stands in 10-15 cm water accompanied by Myrica gale, Carex lasiocarpa, and other sedges and bordering Eleocharis multicaulis community. In the humid dune slacks, R. fusca is accompanied by acidophilous species such as Andromeda polifolia, Vaccinium oxycoccos, Calluna vulgaris, Eriophorum vaginatum, and Eriophorum angustifolium. The moss layer was absent or weakly developed. Sphagnum palustre and Sphagnum subsecundum were the most common bryophytes. The dune slacks are overgrowing with Myrica gale. In the fen, R. fusca is occasionally found in Rhynchospora alba community bordering Cladietum marisci. Frequent associates were Myrica gale, Carex lasiocarpa, Menyanthes trifoliata, Vaccinium oxycoccos, and Utricularia intermedia. Sphagnum teres, Sphagnum contortum, Campylium stellatum, and Scorpidium scorpioides are abundant in the moss layer. The lakeshore community was assigned to Magnocaricion elatae, but the fen community – to Sphagno warnstorfi-Tomentypnion nitentis. The affinity of the dune slack community remains unclear. The main threats include past drainage in the dune slacks causing expansion of Myrica gale. In the future all communities may be influenced by climate change, mainly by increased summer temperatures. causing the decrease of water level.

ABSTRACT. In France, various national programmes using sigmatist phytosociology have shown the need for a common and shared language and thus a syntaxonomical standard. The last work to exhaustively list the vegetation units present in France (to the alliance level) was the Prodrome des végétations de France, published 18 years ago. A follow-up at the association level is currently in progress in the form of monographs for each class.

Unfortunately, because of the slow rate of publication of this follow-up and the different author's visions, there is still no updated and consensually elaborated exhaustive list of France syntaxa. The national vegetation check-list of France aims to produce such a list based on occurrence statuses at the departmental level for each of the units identified.

To do this, the regional check-lists of the different National Botanical Conservatories are aggregated within a system derived from the previous national work. The list of units and its architecture are then reviewed and validated collectively; points of uncertainty are recorded as footnotes.

The check-list is currently validated (including departmental chorology) down to the alliance and sub-alliance level. It includes a bit less than 500 alliances for the territory. Some are widespread (Phragmition communis), others much rarer (Cnidion venosi or Anthyllidion hermanniae).

This collaborative alliance check-list is only a first step: an important work on synonymy and nomenclature validation remains to be done at the association level. Additional information such as ecology or diagnostic taxa will be incorporated. Finally, the national vegetation check-list of France should also be compared to EuroVegChecklist and FloraVeg.eu to identify possible discrepancies and constructively address them.

ABSTRACT. Most European countries have their own classification schemes of the Molinio-Arrhenatheretea class, which may differ significantly in the methodical approaches used and national syntaxonomic traditions. The EuroVegChecklist includes 48 alliances, but the status of some of them is debatable. We wondered whether all of these syntaxonomic units are sufficiently delimited floristically and ecologically and whether they really deserve a separate status. For this purpose, we analyzed more than 300,000 relevés extracted from the European Vegetation Archive (project #87) and developed a classification expert system for Molinio-Arrhenatheretea vegetation to the level of alliances and orders. Thanks to this, all alliances were divided into groups that: 1) are clearly distinguished by the expert system and their original assignment does not significantly differ from that determined by the expert system (e.g. Cynosurion, Molinion, Potentillion anserinae); 2) are distinguished by the expert system, but the original assignment is significantly different (e.g. Trifolion montani), 3) are present in the dataset, according to their original assignment, but are not distinguished by the expert system (e.g. Triseto flavescentis-Polygonion bistortae, Brachypodio-Centaureion nemoralis); 4) have no relevés in EVA and the analyzed dataset (e.g. Astrantion maximae, Artemision ponticae, Conioselinion tatarici). Alliances belonging to group 1 can obviously be considered as "good", that is, have a clear ecological and floristic separation, which is also supported by ordination. Alliances belonging to groups 2 and 3 at this stage are classified as problematic, but we do not reject them, that is, we do not consider them as "bad", although we do not rule out that some of them will be merged with other alliances. As for the alliances assigned to group 4, we search for published relevés and digitize them. Adding them to the total dataset will allow us to find out their status in the future.

ABSTRACT. Various researchers of the Siberian Arctic noted that wetland vegetation in the high latitudes occupies insignificant areas and is presented by successional communities in swamping water bodies or overgrowing freshly drained alluvial banks. In this regard, Arctic wetland vegetation was either ignored or just mentioned in brief comments. Some attention was paid traditionally to communities of Dupontia fulva (=Arctophila fulva) considered in the class Phragmito-Magnocaricetea Klika in Klika et Novák 1941 (hereinafter Ph.-Mag.) or Scheuchzerio-Caricetea nigrae (Nordh. 1936) Tx. 1937 (hereinafter Sch.-Car.), or even in a separate class Arctophiletea fulvae Pestryakov et Gogl. 1989. Communities of other large aquatic grasses and sedges were included in the class Sch.-Car. The data collected in recent years in the Arctic of Middle Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Krai) and East Siberia (Yakutia), i.e., 212 relevés, made it possible to revise the syntaxonomic position of wetland communities. Such communities develop in similar habitats that are characteristic of Ph.-Mag. at lower latitudes, with the exception of permafrost soils and the absence of most diagnostic species of the Ph.-Mag. At the same time, Arctic communities are often dominated by predominantly or even exclusively Arctic species (e.g., Dupontia fulva, D. fisheri, Pleuropogon sabinii, etc.). Based on the presence of a group of diagnostic species (besides those mentioned above, these are Caltha arctica, Coptidium pallasii) and on their confinement to permafrost habitats, we propose a new class Carici stantis-Dupontietea fulvae that replaces the Ph.-Mag. in the Arctic. The new class includes two orders, corresponding to the arctic tundra subzone, and more southern regions to the forest-tundra. Along the southern boundary of the new class, communities of a transitional type (combining diagnostic species of both wetland classes) are observed.

ABSTRACT. Remote sensing is one of the essential tools in ecology and nature conservation for effective spatio-temporal monitoring of changes in ecosystems. As imaging resolution, multispectral and hyperspectral data availability, and advanced data processing techniques improve, remote sensing offers more profound insights into land cover categories. However, due to the complicated and complex character of plant communities, it was impossible to reach the detailed scale defined by diagnostic plant species composition following the Braun-Blanquet approach with existing methodologies and satellite data. Here we show the concept of natural numerical networks as a novel tool for identifying plant communities using satellite images that break this limitation. The natural numerical network is a new deep learning algorithm based on the numerical solution of nonlinear forward-backward diffusion equations on complete graphs. The first network was calibrated to identify four syntaxonomical units in Western Slovakia automatically. The result of classification is a relevancy map, where the values of habitat affinity to trained units in each pixel are computed. For testing the classification success, 150 relevés were chosen from the database. Using the NaturaSat software, the homogenous area around each relevé was obtained by automatic segmentation, and relevancy values for each unit were computed. The number and cover of diagnostic species were computed for relevés and compared with their relevancy values to confirm whether we can classify vegetation units using the presented approach. Acknowledgements: This research was supported by the Europen Space Agency grant No. 4000140486/23/NL/SC/rp, grant VEGA 02/0097/22, and Geobotany private research company.

ABSTRACT. Overview: Till now there were no consistent in depth phytocenological studies of class Digitario sanguinalis-Eragrostietea minoris in the country. This research focuses on the thermophilous plant communities on ruderal and anthropogenically disturbed places, found in lowlands and semi-mountainous regions in Bulgaria.

Materials and methods: During the period 2018-2022, 448 phytocoenological relevés using the Braun-Blanquet approach were collected. The used plot size was 8-16 m2. In addition, we collected data for some abiotic factors such as slope, altitude, bedrock and inclination. All relevés were contributed to the Balkan Vegetation Database (EU-00-013). The nomenclature of species was standardized according to the Euro+Med PlantBase. The hierarchical clustering was performed by the PC-ORD software package using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity and flexible beta clustering algorithm.

Results and discussion: The syntaxonomical diversity of class Digitario sanguinalis-Eragrostietea minoris was represented by 1 order (Eragrostietalia), 3 alliances (Spergulo arvensis-Erodion cicutariae, Chenopodion botryose and Eragrostion), 8 associations (Cynodontetum dactyli, Portulacetum oleraceae, Eragrostio‐Euphorbietum maculatae, Tribulo-Tragetum, Digitario sanguinalis- Eragrostietum minoris, Setario pumile- Echinocloetum cruris-gali, Setario-pumile – Sorghetum halepense, Chenopodietum botryos) and 1 plant community (Setaria viridis-Hibiscus trionum). These grass-rich communities are characterized by predominance of annual and biannual heliophytes and thermophytes. Such ruderal vegetation is found on wastelands, diches, crop fields, city squares, parking spots, railways and other similar places.

Conclusion: This is the first analysis of the syntaxonomy and ecology of class Digitario sanguinalis-Eragrostietea minoris in Bulgaria. We found 1 alliance, 7 associations and 1 community new for the territory of Bulgaria.

ABSTRACT. Dry grasslands and thorn-cushion communities of Armenia are very diverse, but no formal plot-based classification system for them has been proposed yet. There are only a few studies of these communities from adjacent countries in the Southern Caucasus. The vegetation of Armenia is rather unique due to the border between two biogeographical regions crossing the country: Euro-Siberian and Irano-Turanian (Takhtajan 1986; Manafzadeh et al. 2017). Thus, the species belonging to these two regions are both common in the country, and, consequently, the vegetation types of these two regions meet here. We sampled 111 relevés of dry grassland and thorn-cushion communities within five administrative regions of the country (Shirak, Aragatsotn, Gegharkunik, Vayots dzor, Ararat) and an elevational range from 1338 to 2400 m a.s.l. To be able to identify the high-level syntaxonomical units, we used relevés from the neighboring regions for comparison, focusing on the original diagnoses of the high-level units of the similar vegetation types (206 from Northern Caucasus (Russia), 230 from Anatolia (Turkey), and 51 from Alborz Mountains (Iran). In total, 598 relevés were used. After unifying the species taxonomy, removing species determined only to the genus level, and merging species in aggregates, the final dataset contained 1559 vascular plant taxa. Based on the results of a Modified TWINSPAN classification, we distinguished three class-level and eight order-level units in the joint dataset. The relevés from Armenia were classified into two classes, four orders, six alliances, and 11 association-level units.

ABSTRACT. Phytosociology is a school of vegetation study that provides one of the irreplaceable perspectives on vegetation. It emphasizes combinations of species that recur in space, focuses on their standardized description, and attempts to identify their controlling factors. Classification is an important tool to simplify the complex patterns of vegetation variability and to present it in a clear way. An inevitable consequence of the simplification associated with classification is that there are alternative ways to classify the same vegetation. It is usually not possible to select the best solution because of the equivalence of different solutions or because of the multitude of criteria used to evaluate the classification results. Thus, if the resulting classification is just one of the suitable solutions, the results of classification studies should perhaps be presented in an appropriate, pluralistic manner. I believe that particularly syntaxonomic syntheses still owe much to their users in this respect. Looking at the perspectives of the EVS, I suggest we also should work towards the understanding of plurality of the different classifications to keep phytosociology alive at a time when its role is somewhat marginalised in some traditional countries. This effort might include an emphasis on the view that broad-scale syntheses are complementary, rather than superior, to fine-scale classification exercises. We should also encourage the development of alternative classifications for the same areas, based for example on different methodological approaches. Also, matching new relevés to existing classifications might be done in a pluralistic way enriching rather than unifying our viewpoints. Thus, we will probably never be done with vegetation classification – but this is perhaps what phytosociology needs to maintain a creative and authentic relationship of experts and the wider public to the variability of vegetation in space as one aspect of a diverse living world.

ABSTRACT. Diversity-area relationships (DARs) have mostly focused on species richness but other diversity components, such as phylogenetic diversity, may help understand how biodiversity patterns change across spatial scales. In this work, we sampled vascular plant composition in nested plots of seven grain sizes (0.0001-100 m2) on southern European Atlantic coastal dune communities (embryo, mobile and fixed dunes) in order to analyse DARs. This was done separately for the whole species pool and for the subset of specialists. We asked: do fine-scale SAR and PDAR patterns and taxonomic and phylogenetic β-diversity change along the dune gradient?; how do specialist species influence these patterns? Diversity indices included taxonomic diversity (TD, by means of species richness), Faith’s index of phylogenetic diversity (PD) and its standardised effect sizes (PD.SES) to remove the influence of species richness on PD. A phylogenetic tree was assembled for the calculation of these phylogenetic indices. z-values were calculated for TD, PD and PD.SES using linear regressions of the power-law function in double log space. TD and PD increased with plot size in the three habitats along the gradient, with fixed dunes accumulating more TD and PD. Both embryo and mobile dunes had mean positive PD.SES values at all grain sizes and their curves showed a similar pattern, while PD.SES in fixed dunes turned from negative at the smallest grain sizes to positive at the biggest ones. Results were similar for total species and for specialists, suggesting that the latter drive DARs in these habitats. Mean z-values for TD and PD ranged from 0.16 to 0.25 and increased from embryo to mobile to fixed dunes, with higher values for total species in the case of TD and similar values for total species and specialists regarding PD. Mean z-values for PD.SES were close to 0 and negative in embryo and mobile dunes and close to 0 and positive in fixed dunes, both for total species and specialists.

ABSTRACT. In the face of climate change and declining area of semi-natural grasslands in agricultural landscape, information about macroecological drivers of grassland diversity is of key importance for effective conservation of these ecosystems. In studies at a large spatial extends data related to vegetation and its potential drives are often characterised by low resolution or scarceness. However, growing availability, quality, and accuracy of databases enables to overcome methodological challenges. Here, we examined the effects of environmental gradients, landscape, human pressure, habitat continuity in time, and spatial structure on plant species richness and composition in semi-natural grasslands at a regional extent (ca 20,000 km2). For this purpose we used data from the Polish Vegetation Database, as well as environmental, socio-economical, and historical data from freely available national and international databases. The analysis were performed using boosted regression trees and multivariate approach for over 700 georeferenced relevés (vegetation plots) distributed across area of ~20,000 km2. We found that variables associated with human pressure, landscape, soil parameters, and spatial structures significantly affected species richness patterns. Species composition patterns were affected by different set of drivers, which represented climate, long-term habitat continuity, and topography. In this study, we also stressed that, identification of individual grasslands patches and patch complexes with high conservational value (in terms of species richness and composition) would be crucial in planning conservation areas network, at a landscape scale. Vegetation databases could make this information widely available. The approach presented here, which utilised phytosociological data and environmental databases, could be used in other macroecological studies on different habitat types and for different regions.

ABSTRACT. Pinus nigra is one the most abundant and widespread pine species in the Mediterranean Basin, with a distribution range resulting from the interplay of environmental factors and historical processes. Understanding the relative importance of these factors and processes for diversity and composition of the understory plant community across the distribution of P. nigra forests requires a multifaceted approach that integrates taxonomic and functional alpha and beta diversity. We assessed the effects of climate (aridity and climatic seasonality), history (distance from current native range), and local factors (terrain ruggedness index and canopy cover) on alpha and beta taxonomic and functional diversity using linear models and distance-based redundancy analysis. Climate was the main driver of diversity and composition at different scales, highlighting the vulnerability of understory communities to climate change. Historical factors affected the diversity of local communities through the interplay of dispersal limitation. Local diversity is reduced under high canopy cover and in more homogeneous landscape. Comparing the drivers of the different diversity facets at continental scale enhances our understanding of vegetation response to environmental gradients.

ABSTRACT. Microrefugia are often located within topographically complex areas where they provide stable environmental conditions for climate-change-sensitive species. The unique microclimate (e.g., cold-air pooling) of such safe havens is in the focus of most studies concerning the distributions of species, instead of other environmental factors, such as resource availability (e.g., soil moisture and soil nutrients). Furthermore, there is little knowledge about the relationships among topography-related microhabitat diversity, microclimate, resource availability and vegetation patterns in contemporary and potential future microrefugia. Karst landscapes cover about 20% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface, providing topographically complex environments. The most typical landforms of these landscapes are topographic depressions, such as dolines, which may function as microrefugia. Here we investigated the effects of microclimatic conditions and resource availability (various soil properties) on plant species persistence within and adjacent to 30 large dolines distributed in two distant karst regions in Central Europe. Sampling sites were established in four microhabitats in each doline (south-facing slope, north-facing slope, bottom, and the surrounding plateau) for vegetation and soil sampling and microclimatic measurements. We used mixed-effects models and non-metric multidimensional scaling for our analysis. Our results highlighted that both microclimate and resource availability may be crucial in structuring vegetation patterns in topographic depressions in karst landscapes. We found, for instance, that the cool and moist north-facing slopes and bottoms of dolines maintained several climate-change-sensitive species, while the nutrient-rich doline bottoms provided important microhabitats for nutrient-demanding species. Identifying climate-smart conservation priorities and strategies is required to maintain or increase the resistance and resilience of such microrefugia.

ABSTRACT. Changes in the global environment have led to the extinction of local species and the colonization of new ones, resulting in losses and gains of evolutionary lineages with unique characteristics. The question arises as to whether these losses and gains occur randomly across the tree of life. To answer this question, we analyzed changes in plant phylogenetic diversity (losses and gains) in European temperate forest understories over a period of approximately 40 years. We also examined the phylogenetic structure of the species lost and gained in these areas and investigated how changes in macroclimate and nitrogen deposition affected these changes.

Although there was only a slight decline in phylogenetic diversity, losses and gains of species were concentrated within specific lineages. For example, consistent losses were found in the Fabaceae, Orchidaceae, and Rubiaceae families, while consistent gains were found in the Fagaceae, Betulaceae, and Rosaceae families. We found that plots experiencing declines in annual precipitation but little change in minimum winter temperatures lost a considerable amount of phylogenetic diversity. On the other hand, plots with low nitrogen deposition that experienced warmer summers gained more phylogenetic diversity.

The lost and gained species within the plots were phylogenetically random subsets of surrounding habitat species pools, indicating that closely related plant species did not share traits affecting their ability to colonize new environments or making them vulnerable to extinction. Furthermore, environmental changes did not appear to affect the phylogenetic structure of lost and gained species. In conclusion, recent environmental changes in temperate forests have altered patterns of phylogenetic diversity, with losses and gains identifying specific branches of the tree of life and ecological strategies that may expand or contract under global change.

ABSTRACT. Ptilostemon greuteri (Asteraceae) is one of the most intriguing narrow endemic plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. At first glimpse, the largest individuals of this species remind the most remarkable and weird cases of herbaceous genera (e.g., Echium, Senecio) turned woody on insular or insular-like mountain ecosystems. This woody thistle is only known from two populations mostly growing on NNE-facing calcareous cliffs and ledges on the NW coast of Sicily (Italy) and can be considered a climate relict. To better understand its ecology and better address conservation efforts, we investigated the plant communities where P. greuteri lives, then analysed which species and life forms are most frequently associated with it. The analysis of vegetation plots sampled along four orthogonal transects showed that P. greuteri is positively associated with species ascribed to different syntaxa, united by a preference for shady environmental conditions. Our results confirm that relict species are difficult to frame into a syntaxonomical classification, because in most cases they represent the last remnants of a vegetation type that has disappeared.

ABSTRACT. The increase in density and biomass of shrub species in grasslands is a global trend related to climate change, land use changes and abandonment of grasslands. This phenomenon, known as woody plant encroachment (WPE), leads to various effects on grasslands, such as a loss of plant diversity and changes in soil ecology. In the present study, we carried out a literature review with the aim of 1) exploring the global distribution of existing studies on WPE and 2) analyzing WPE studies focused on vegetation dynamics and floristic diversity. We conducted a literature search and categorization of the selected references, a total of 752. There has been a remarkable increase in the number of studies in the last decade and a lot of them are related to vegetation and global change. Most of these studies correspond to North America and Africa, and with respect to biomes, to savanna and steppe. Out of 752 references, 303 study vegetation-related aspects. Most of them quantify the increase of WPE, assess vegetation dynamics and floristic composition changes, or evaluate management practices. Few studies analyze the effects of shrub invasion on taxonomic, functional or phylogenetic diversity. In general, studies measuring WPE show an increase of shrubland over the last decades, which is associated to an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, global warming, fire frequency and grazing regime. Most of these studies conclude that this increase leads to a loss of diversity and a change in composition and structure. The dynamics of the grassland-shrub ecotone follow different patterns depending on the location, and many factors influence the increase of woody plants over herbaceous plants, such as the characteristics of the encroaching woody species, plant interactions and climatic or edaphic conditions. Studies evaluating management methods conclude that a combination of different management techniques is the best way to halt the spread of shrub species.

ABSTRACT. Although the dispersal ability of plants is one of the key features in the spatial dynamics of species, also reflected in the structure of plant communities, it is also one of the traits for which we still lack data for most species. Therefore, we compiled a comprehensive dataset of seed dispersal-distance classes and major dispersal modes for most European vascular plants. In our dataset, we classified species into seven dispersal-distance classes based on the morphology of dispersal units (i.e., diaspores or propagules), life form, prevailing dispersal mode, seed release height, seed mass, and habitat preferences. Each class thus contains species with similar dispersal ability. The seven dispersal-distance classes can be further used as a semi-quantitative trait. To evaluate our assignments into dispersal-distance classes, we further related them to the estimated dispersal distances based on a different approach. The seed dispersal dataset contains information about dispersal-distance classes and the most efficient dispersal modes for almost 10,000 most frequent and locally dominant European vascular plant species. It will become open and easily accessible within the FloraVeg.EU online database and can be used in functional biogeography, dynamic vegetation modelling, and ecological studies that account for plant dispersal from local to continental scales.

ABSTRACT. Zelkova carpinifolia is a remarkable relict tree of the Arcto-Tertiary Geoflora in southwestern Eurasia. Its distribution encompasses Colchic and Hyrcanian refugia and a few isolated stands beyond (Kozlowski et al. 2018). In 2022, we recorded a dataset of vegetation-plot records of forests dominated by Z. carpinifolia in Colchis (W Georgia) and merged it with analogical plots from the Hyrcanian Region (N Iran; Gholizadeh et al. 2020). The Colchic distribution of Z. carpinifolia concentrates in a small inland area (~600 km2) of the largely deforested lowland around Kutaisi. It occurs mainly in remnant forests on old river terraces and hillslopes (Nakhutsrishvili 2013). Colchic types appeared relatively xeric, Carpinus orientalis and Quercus spp. were its most common canopy companions. Other xerophytes and xeromesophytes frequently grew in the understory. Contrary, Hyrcanian types displayed a higher portion of mesophytes and local endemics. Colchic stands occurred on moderately acidic to neutral soils (mean pH 6.2), often deep, loamy or with an admixture of gravel and silt. Z. carpinifolia in Colchis favours higher light availability and drier substrates and thus prefers forest edges, sunny slopes and various convex relief forms. Colchic and Hyrcanian stands are developed under a climate with summer drought periods and relatively warm winters. In the context of other dry deciduous forests in the Euxinian Province, Georgian Z. carpinifolia stands exhibited a unique species composition, together with Colchic Carpinus orientalis forests (Novák et al. 2021). Z. carpinifolia belongs among the flagship species of the Caucasian nature conservancy (Akhalkatsi 2019, Gegechkori 2020). According to our observations, overgrazing still represents a severe threat to most of its Colchic stands, coupled with several other factors. Therefore, various aspects of Z. carpinifolia ecology and biology should be investigated to increase the effectiveness of its in-situ conservation.

ABSTRACT. Understanding spatial patterns of species diversity distribution is among major goals in ecology. The ongoing biodiversity loss due to global socio-economic changes, landscape transformation, and intensification of agriculture resulting in habitat loss and degradation, gives an extra impulse to study the biodiversity drivers. Here, using a new data set (Szymura et al. 2023), we examine environmental and socio-economical correlates likely influencing vascular plant species richness in Poland, Central Europe (ca. 312,000 km2). We analyzed species richness of native species, neophytes, archeophytes, and species with high conservation value in a 10x10 km spatial grid (2,866 squares examined), with an assessment of potential sampling effort effect. The modeling was done using a joined model approach with boosted regression trees and random forests algorithms, which enabled to examination explanatory power of species richness drivers and also modeled the changes of the species richness along values of the explanatory variables. We found that species richness of particular species groups (e.g. archeophytes, neophytes) correlates with different explanatory variables. Species groups also differed in explained variation by environmental and socioeconomic drivers variability. Besides the differences, among the most important correlates were size of farms and human population density. Our results showed that species richness decreases with increasing farm size, and this trend was observed also for neophytes. The effect of population density was less straightforward as richness of the native and high conservation value species increases with population density up to particular density thresholds. This study also indicates the high importance of bio-climatic, soil, and topographic correlates for species richness patterns. Particularly we found that soil calcium content correlates with high conservation value species richness, but rather not with other species groups.

ABSTRACT. A distribution model of Annex I Habitat types of the Habitat Directive (92/43/CEE), at the regional scale (i.e. Latium region, Italy), was developed and applied to provide a baseline mapping. An initial database of 8615 vegetation plots was analysed and filtered by means of an expert-based process followed by fuzzy analysis to assign Habitat type codes. Finally, a field campaign was carried out to fill gaps in specific Natura 2000 sites and/or Habitat types. The resulting 6686 Habitat plots dataset was then grouped according to the highest level of the Habitat hierarchy – i.e., macro-categories (1xxx-9xxx units in the Annex 1 list). The spatially explicit occurrences of the macro-categories were used to produce a map of the Habitat types, by means of a Random Forests supervised machine learning algorithm, with an overall accuracy close to 80%. This procedure integrates the Habitat occurrences data with information generated from Sentinel-2 MSI satellite imageries (vegetation and spectral indices and spectral signatures over time) and environmental variables (i.e. climatic, topographic and soil properties). We provided a standardized and reproducible methodology to produce a probabilistic Habitat distribution map, which can be used to support monitoring and assessment procedures at local and national scale.

ABSTRACT. The new version of the EUNIS habitat classification will become the reference list for aggregating habitat information at the European level. Accordingly, regional habitat maps and vegetation databases will need to link their classification systems to EUNIS typologies in the best way possible. Assigning vegetation plots to EUNIS types has been successfully implemented at the European scale with the Expert System algorithm (Chytrý et al. 2020), but we still need to understand how this procedure applies to regional data sets. Here, we present a procedure to assign vegetation data to EUNIS habitats at the regional level in the Cantabrian Mixed Forest ecoregion. We used 28,775 vegetation plots of the ecoregion stored in SIVIM (Font et al. 2010) and applied the Expert System to assign the plots to EUNIS typologies of forests and shrublands. The number of plots assigned to EUNIS level-III types was relatively low and the assignment was inaccurate. Thus, we kept the Expert System at EUNIS level II and then analysed each group separately. Within each level-II group, we conducted a semi-supervised classification to differentiate habitat types in agreement to regional classifications used in vegetation maps and phytosociological systems. During the process, we assigned plots not classified by the Expert System at EUNIS level II to each habitat type, including new types when necessary. Our approach allowed us to assign all forest and shrubland plots to EUNIS units at different levels (mostly IV and V), making them useful for both regional management and European-scale analyses.

ABSTRACT. Often the aim of national vegetation monitoring is to provide reliable estimates for predefined indicators both for the total area and for regions and ecological stratifications within the area. Sampling techniques such as grid sampling, stratification and cluster sampling are usually used to achieve broad sample coverage, high estimation precision and low survey costs.

In Switzerland, the monitoring programme of protected biotopes of national importance (WBS) was established in 2011 and aims by means of repeated vegetation surveys of permanent plots to estimate trends in nature conservation quality of these biotopes. Vegetation surveys are done in dry meadows and pastures, alluvial areas, fens and bogs. To select sites of national importance and plots within sites, we used a multi-stage unequal probability sampling design to better cover small regions (e.g., southern Alps, Jura mountains) and rares vegetation types (e.g., Stipo-Poion). The sampling efficiency, i.e., the precision of the estimates, was ensured by an additional spreading of the samples (sites and plots) over the geographic and environmental space.

We will demonstrate the principles and the efficiency of the advanced sampling design and present exemplary results of state and change estimates for three types of indicators (species number, plant indicator values, area of target vegetation types).