scholarly journals Some regularities in the distribution of kenophytes in the Polish Carpathians and their foreland

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Zając ◽  
Adam Zając

Abstract The Polish Carpathians and their northern foreland are a rewarding object for the kenophyte distribution research. The study, using the cartogram method, showed that the number of kenophyte species decreases with increasing altitude. Only few kenophytes were found in the lower forest zone. This regularity concerns also the species that reach higher altitudes in the mountains of their native lands. A number of species migrated into the Carpathians through rivers and streams. River valleys generate many open habitats, which are easily colonized by kenophytes due to the lack of competition. In the Carpathians, towns used to be founded in the mountain valleys and this was also a favouring factor of kenophyte propagation. The arrangement of mountain ranges in the Polish Carpathians, including their foreland, hindered the migration of some species and allowed to discover the possible migration routes into the area covered by research. Tracing these migration routes was possible only for those species that have not occupied the whole available area yet. Additionally, the study indicated the most dangerous invasive species in the Polish Carpathians and their foreland.

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Zając ◽  
Barbara Tokarska-Guzik ◽  
Maria Zając

The role of rivers and streams in the migration of alien plants into the Polish CarpathiansThe Carpathians are among the regions of Poland that are generally less susceptible to invasive alien plants. The factor limiting the spread of the species of this group is, above all, the mountain climate. Even species originating from other mountain regions, e.g. the HimalayanImpatiens glandulifera, have their localities only at low elevations, in the Carpathian foothills. In most cases, alien plant species migrate into the Carpathians from the lowlands. The river valleys provide the migration corridors used by alien species in the course of their progress into new territories of the upper mountain localities. The situation along some mountain rivers, where invasive alien species dominate the native vegetation, is dramatic. Their spread is facilitated not only by easy diaspore transport but also by some anthropogenic factors, such as, river engineering and the transformation of riparian habitats and progressing devastation. Currently, we can observe some invasive alien plants "in statu nascendi", developing a new, secondary range in the Carpathians (e.g.Chaerophyllum aureum) or at the foothills, along the Wisła (Vistula) and San river valleys (e.g.Eragrostis albensis). For some species, cities were the destination for the first stage of future migration, e.g.Acer negundo. In the Carpathians, where many national parks and nature reserves are located, the continuous monitoring of the spread of invasive alien plants should be one of the principal activities of botanists.


Author(s):  
A. Baitsar

Forest timberline (TL) is a compound and dynamic organism, whish is situated on the boundary of the forest zone and the highland. The study embraces regions of the Ukrainian Carpathians. In the Carpathians are determined 2 types of TL: natural and anthropogenic. Subtypes of natural TL: thermal, orographical, winddepen, avalanche depend, biotic, peat- swamp, gregot, talus trail. It was defined 2 options of TL: firry and beechy. Key words: The Ukrainian Carpathians, forest timber – line (TL), polonynas, highland.


2003 ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Forsten ◽  
Vesna Dimitrijevic

A review of the fossil horses of the genus Equus from the central Balkans, a mountainous area comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is presented in this paper. The time period covered by the finds is from the late Early to and including the Late Pleistocene, but the record is not complete: the dated finds are Late Pleistocene in age, while Early and Middle Pleistocene are poorly represented. The horses found resemble those from neighbouring countries from the same time period, probably showing the importance of river valleys as migration routes. The Morava River valley runs in a roughly south-to-north direction, connecting, via the Danube and Tisa River valleys the Hungarian Pannonian Plain in the north with northern Greece in the south, via the Vardar River valley in Macedonia. In Pleistocene, large mammals, including horses, probably used this route for dispersal.


Author(s):  
T. Kalynii ◽  
V. Omelchenko

A survey of geomorphological and neotectonic features around "The Starunia paleontological site" allows to produce a complete description of paleogeographic conditions and geological age of the Pleistocene mammals. The floodplain terraces I and II and a redevelopment valley have been distinguished on the geomorphological map and a sketch of cross-section of the Velyky Lukavets River valley. The location of fossil fauna (mammoth and rhinoceroses) has been indicated. The prospect of finding new extinct Pleistocene mammals preserved in bitumen and salt has been substantiated. In the late Pliocene, the northeast macro-slope of the Carpathians was dissected by many parallel river valleys transverse to the main Carpathian direction of structures and longitudinal valleys. The rivers took down coarse-grained material from the mountains that formed the high terraces and debris cones (inland delta) of the ancient Dniester valley. The latter was formed at the foot of the Carpathians, in the area of the modern village of Loyeva and the Dniester, then gradually retreated 30–40 km to the northeast and took its present location on the longitude of the town of Halych. Its block mass alluvium formed two ancient terrace plains – Krasna and Loyeva. The climate was subtropical, the type of the present Mediterranean, as evidenced by the red-brown color of the clayey cement of coarse-grained alluvium and cover clays with active migration of iron and manganese. In the early Pleistocene, in the wide swampy valley of the river Lukavets Velykyi, the winding beds of the last stage of river valleys development were quietly meandered. Monotonous dark gray to black marsh accumulations, silt clays, biogenic silts with numerous plant remains accumulated. Landscapes – tundra with dwarf birch, alder, willow etc. The climate was severe, consistent with Wurm (Valdai) glaciation (59–13 thousand years ago). Perhaps just then herds of mammoths and rhinos grazed in the valleys of the Starunia territory and our ancestors Cro-Magnons lived here. The extremely important practical value of Starunia is that further expansion of research and creation of an international ecological-tourist center – the Geopark of the Ice Age will significantly improve the socio-economic status of the village of Starunia, provide the population with new jobs and raise the level of tourism in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. The authors hope that the unique phenomenon of Starunia will be preserved for future generations.


2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 997-1016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsiao-Chung Tsai ◽  
Tim Hau Lee

Abstract The multivariate relationships between hourly surface wind and rainfall observations during typhoons affecting Taiwan have been investigated with maximum covariance analysis (MCA). Historical surface observations from 1987 to 2004 are used when typhoon centers were located inside the domain of 19°–28°N, 117°–127°E. The three leading MCA modes explain 70%, 20.6%, and 7.6% of the squared covariance fraction, and the correlation coefficients are 0.59, 0.48, and 0.49, respectively. The wind directions of the three leading positive modes are 1) northwesterly flow perpendicular to the Snow Mountain Range (SMR), 2) southwesterly flow toward the river valleys of the southwestern Central Mountain Range (CMR) and the southern SMR, and 3) easterly flow toward the northeastern SMR and the northern CMR. The rainfall patterns of the three principal modes reveal the contrast between the windward and the leeward sides of the mountain ranges. Based on the MCA singular vectors, historical typhoon surface wind patterns are categorized into major types. The results show that the three major wind types consist of 53% of the data, with 25%, 9%, and 19%, respectively, for these wind types. Furthermore, the analyses of the corresponding surface air temperatures, relative humidities, and air pressures also reveal contrasting patterns between the windward and leeward sides.


2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Łukasz Wiejaczka ◽  
Jan Romuald Olędzki ◽  
Anna Bucała-Hrabia ◽  
Małgorzata Kijowska-Strugała

Abstract This study analyzed the temporal and spatial changes in land use taking place in two adjacent river valleys, located within the Polish Carpathians. The land use in 1977 and 2009 was presented for selected areas. In one of the valleys, a dam has been operating since 1994 along with a retention reservoir, which is an additional factor influencing the direction and scale of the land use changes. An analysis using GIS techniques showed that the general directions of transformation in both valleys in the land use structure are similar but with different intensity. In studied valleys a decrease of area with agricultural land and gradual increase in the forested area have been observed. In the valley with the reservoir few more changes were noticed. The decrease of the forested area by 5.5% and farmland by 8.2% on the areas submerged by reservoir was observed. The strip fields pattern has been changed into more dispersed. The road network development was also observed, as well as the change of nature of residential/agricultural buildings into residential/recreational.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (19) ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Igor Zagorodniuk ◽  

The results of the revision of the species composition and related knowledge of taxonomy, biogeography, diagnostics, variability and ecomorphology of polytypic groups of murine rodents, superfamily Muroidei, are presented. These are 5 former "large" species: "wood mice", "common mice", water voles, "shrub voles" and "common voles". Each of these groups is represented in the fauna of Ukraine and neighboring countries by 2–3 species. The two most difficult for revision and for background monitoring of fauna are "forest mice" and "common voles", each of which is represented in the fauna of the region by three morphologically very similar species of different kinship, among which one (the most genetically distant) is widely sympatric to the other two species that are allospecies. Among "forest mice", such species are Sylvaemus uralensis (= microps) against the pair S. sylvaticus + S. witherbyi (= S. falzfeini), and among the "common voles" it is Microtus levis (= rossiaemeridionalis) against the pair M. arvalis + M. obscurus. The other three pairs of species are generally more diverged (at least in terms of habitats and ecology, and in some cases morphology) and clearly less sympatric species. In the group of "common" mice, Mus "musculus" (s.l.), there is a pair of synanthropic and exanthropic forms — M. musculus and M. spicilegus (= M. sergii), which usually do not interact in nature, and therefore poorly diverged in morphology. In the group of "water voles" there is an allopatric pair, represented by the Carpathian-Roztochchian (essentially mountainous, associated with meadows) as well as plain hydrophilic forms, Arvicola scherman and A. amphibius (= A. terrestris). In the group of "shrub voles" there is a sympatric pair of species, one of them has limited distribution in the Carpathians (Terricola tatricus), but the other (T. subterraneus), being sympatric to the first in the Carpathians, also forms numbered populations in lowland forests, as in the forest zone as in the bairak steppe zone. Morphological differentiation between them is generally high, but the Eastern Carpathian form of Terricola tatricus is the smallest in a row of mountain forms of Terricola (multiplex, tatricus, zykovi), which was the reason for its long-term non-recognition in the fauna of Ukraine. For all species, descriptions are presented, including 5 standard parts for this series of publications: general remarks, taxonomy (including nomenclature), distribution (including biotopes), diagnostics (including variability), ecomorphology.Key words: small mammals, habitats, dominance, abundance of species.


Author(s):  
Yaroslav Kravchuk ◽  
Vitaliy Brusak

In the stydy an analysis of the geological structure and relief of Uzhansky, “Skolivsky Beskydy”, and “Boykivshchyna” national natural parks (NNP), located in the north-western part of the Ukrainian Carpathians, is presented. Uzhansky NNP is located within the Polonynsko-Chornohirska and Vododilno-Verkhovyna geomorphological regions, “Skolivski Beskydy” NNP is situated in the Skibovy Carpathians, and the newly created “Boykivshchyna” NNP is located within the Vododilno-Verkhovyna and Skybovi Carpathians. The analysis of the morphostructure and morphosculpture of national parks is carried out taking into account the longitudinal (N-W–S-E) and transverse divisions of the Ukrainian Carpathians. The longitudinal division is associated with higher morphostructures of higher orders – the second and third, with the transverse is associated with the fourth and fifth morphostructures. In the analysis of morphosculpture of national parks, the types which are characteristic of the Carpathian Flysch belt are allocated. All mountain ranges and ridges are characterized by an asymmetrical structure – steep northeastern slopes and declivous southwestern slopes. The relic morphosculpture is represented by: 1) fragments of denudation surfaces of different ages such as Beskid, Pidbeskid, and riparian; 2) extra glacial and firn glaciations; 3) areas of ancient longitudinal valleys. Inherited morphosculpture is represented by river valleys with a complex of terraces of different ages. Modern morphodynamic processes represent by height (tier) differentiation. In the tiers of strongly dissected mid-mountain and low-mountain relief, the processes of planar erosion, deflux, and linear erosion play an important role in the modeling of the relief. The lower tier of the terraced and non-terraced bottoms of the valleys are associated with the processes of leaching and erosion as well as a significant accumulation of erosion products and mudflows. Among gravitational processes and block motions, stabilized and active displacements are the most recorded. Keywords: National natural park; Ukrainian Carpathians; relief; morphostructure; morphosculpture.


2016 ◽  
Vol 85 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulina Janik ◽  
Anna Ronikier

<em>Meriderma</em> represents a recently described genus of nivicolous myxomycetes with high morphological variability. Due to many complications in its taxonomy and species recognition in the past, the group was considered a morphologically variable complex. Recent clarifications and recognition of morphological boundaries into species and morphotypes has fostered a classification revision of specimens found in the Carpathians. Material used in this study was systematically collected in the Polish part of the Carpathians from 2004 to 2009. As a result of micro- and macroscopic observations of 54 collections, we recorded nine taxa of <em>Meriderma</em>. Seven of these (all but <em>M. carestiae</em> and <em>M. cribrarioides</em>) are the first records for Poland and for the Carpathians overall. Our observations based on analysis of spore ornamentation by SEM are in accordance with recently proposed classification and confirm segregation of taxa based on spore ornamentation pattern.


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