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Natural habitat and vegetation types of river gravel bars in the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia

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Abstract

River gravel-bar habitats are highly endangered. They are still well-preserved in the Caucasus, but developing conservation strategies is burdened by the lack of data from this region. We studied vegetation and habitat types on gravel bars of 22 rivers in Georgia, including successional stages from open early-successional herbaceous vegetation to scrub. We distinguished five vegetation types based on vegetation physiognomy and β-flexible clustering of species composition, and described them as phytosociological vegetation units: Early-successional herbaceous vegetation at higher elevations was described as the new association Epilobietum colchici and that at lower elevations as the Petrorhagia saxifraga–Crepis foetida community. The grassland dominated by Calamagrostis pseudophragmites and scrub vegetation were assigned to the associations previously described from Central Europe (Tussilagini farfarae-Calamagrostietum pseudophragmitae, Salici purpureae-Myricarietum germanicae and Salici incanae-Hippophaëtum rhamnoidis). We established diagnostic plant species for each type using the fidelity calculation and related these types to environmental variables. We further compared them with the previously published data on gravel-bar vegetation from the Russian part of the Caucasus and with European systems of habitat classification. This study demonstrates that vegetation and habitat types occurring in Georgia correspond to those recognized earlier in Europe, and can be easily linked to the European systems of habitat classification. Unlike in other parts of Europe, these habitats are still well-preserved on rivers with natural hydrological dynamics, but they are threatened by plans of dam building and other river regulations. Our study provides baseline data for developing conservation strategies for the Caucasian gravel-bar habitats.

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  • 08 November 2020

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Idoia Biurrun for valuable remarks on a previous version of the manuscript. We thank Kamila Čížková, Anna Hlaváčková, Helena Prokešová, Jakub Salaš, Ondřej Škeřík and Lucie Vančurová for their help in the field, and Jiří Danihelka, Vít Grulich, Svatava Kubešová and Petr Šmarda for their help with plant identification. The study was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (Centre for European Vegetation Syntheses, project no. 19-28491X).

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  1. Department of Botany and Zoology, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, Brno, CZ-611 37, Czech Republic

    Veronika Kalníková, Kryštof Chytrý, Pavel Novák, Dominik Zukal & Milan Chytrý

  2. Beskydy Protected Landscape Area Administration, Nádražní 36, Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, CZ-756 61, Czech Republic

    Veronika Kalníková

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VK conceived the study and led the writing of this article. Field sampling was organized by VK and PN and conducted by VK, KC, PN and DZ. Statistical analyses were performed by VK and KC. All the authors participated in the interpretation of the results and writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Veronika Kalníková.

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Kalníková, V., Chytrý, K., Novák, P. et al. Natural habitat and vegetation types of river gravel bars in the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia. Folia Geobot 55, 41–62 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12224-020-09364-6

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