MƏRKƏZİ KİÇİK QAFQAZ (AZƏRBAYCAN HÜDUDLARINDA) FLORASININ QİDA BİTKİLƏRİNİN TAKSONOMİK TƏRKİBİ VƏ BİOEKOLOJİ XÜSUSİYYƏTLƏRİ

The article presents the species composition, bioecological features and the possibility of using of food plants in the flora of the Central Part of Lesser Caucasus (CLC) within Azerbaijan. During the taxonomic analysis of the species composition of food plants, 209 species belonging to 157 genera and 59 families were identified. According to the life forms among identified species 95 were perennials and 43 were annual herb plants. Trees are represented by 26 species, shrubs by 24 species, biannual herb plants by 21 species. In relation to moisture, six ecological types were identified. Among them mesophytes predominate with 91 species and xerophytes with 74 species. Mesoxerophytes include 23 species, xeromesophytes 20 species and mesohygrophytes one species. It was found that of the identified food plants, leaves of about 50 species are used both in fresh and cooked form, leaves, roots, rhizomes, bulbs, and fruits of 42 species in fresh, salted and cooked form and 30 species for obtaining of oil. Keywords: annual, ecological groups, life forms, mezophytes, perennial, species composition, xerophytes

Flora and vegetation of urbanized areas on the example of the Melekeska and Shukralinka valleys within Naberezhnye Chelny

The paper deals with the examination results of flora and vegetation of the Melekeska and Shukralinka valleys within Naberezhnye Chelny. The most common plant associations are identified, they are Bromopsetum variograminosum, B. varioherbosum, Festicetum variograminosum, Calamagrostetum epigeiosum; Phragmitetum australis associations are identified in the flooded areas. Anthropogenically altered areas with a high mosaicity of listed above associations communities and ephemeral weeds are widely represented. The volume and structure are shown in the areas flora. This area is subjected to constant anthropogenic load. Taxonomic and geographic analyses of flora as well as a range of vital forms and ecological types are submitted. 120 plant species from 94 genera and 40 families have been identified. The position of the leading families is like that in regional flora, Asteraceae, Poaceae, and Fabaceae are leading. Perennial polycarpic grasses especially long-rhizome (21,7%) and tap-root (15,0%) dominate among biomorphs (69,2%). Species with wide ranges are of paramount importance, they are Euro-West Asian (30,9%), Eurasian (27,5%), Holarctic (11,7%) and the percentage of alien species is 8,5%. Ruderal (36,7%), meadow (17,5%) and humid meadow (11,7%) species are leading in the ecological-coenotic spectrum. The adventive flora is represented by 16 species and it is briefly analyzed. Valley floras of some other Middle Volga rivers have been compared.

Estimation of Water Coverage in Permanent and Temporary Shallow Lakes and Wetlands by Combining Remote Sensing Techniques and Genetic Programming: Application to the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula

This work aims to validate the wide use of an algorithm developed using genetic programing (GP) techniques allowing to discern between water and non-water pixels using the near infrared band and different thresholds. A total of 34 wetlands and shallow lakes of 18 ecological types were used for validation. These include marshes, salt ponds, and saline and freshwater, temporary and permanent shallow lakes. Furthermore, based on the spectral matching between Landsat and Sentinel-2 sensors, this methodology was applied to Sentinel-2 imagery, improving the spatial and temporal resolution. When compared to other techniques, GP showed better accuracy (over 85% in most cases) and acceptable kappa values in the estimation of water pixels (κ ≥ 0.7) in 10 of the 18 assayed ecological types evaluated with Landsat-7 and Sentinel-2 imagery. The improvements were especially achieved for temporary lakes and wetlands, where existing algorithms were scarcely reliable. This shows that GP algorithms applied to remote sensing satellite imagery can be a valuable tool to monitor water coverage in wetlands and shallow lakes where multiple factors cause a low resolution by commonly used water indices. This allows the reconstruction of hydrological series showing their hydrological behaviors during the last three decades, being useful to predict how their hydrological pattern may behave under future global change scenarios.

The changes in ecological structure of oribatid mites (Oribatida) communities under the influence of anthropogenic factors on Transcarpathian Lowland

The peculiarities of changes in the ecological structure of oribatid communities under the influence of anthropogenic factors (grazing and hydromelioration) in the conditions of the Transcarpathian Lowland are considered in the work. In particular, the changes in the structure of mopho-ecological types (adaptive types), biotope groups and complexes according to the hygropreferendum, which occur due to the transformation of biotopes, are analyzed. It is established that hydromelioration and grazing leads to various tendency changes, which in turn are related to the peculiarities of the biology of specific species of oribatids and the specifics of the action of the studied factors.

Transformation of cenomorphs of grass-dwarf-shrub layer of forest phytocenoses of Zhytomyr Polissya after surface fires

Transformation of cenomorphs of grass-dwarf-shrub layer of forest phytocenoses of Zhytomyr Polissya after surface fires was analyzed in forest ecological types A2, A3, B2, B3, B4, C2. It was shown that the cenomorph spectrum of grass-dwarf-shrub layer after surface fires essentially transforms. In all investigated forest ecological types after forest fires number of cenomorphs increased.It was made a conclusion that the general regularity after surface fires in this layer was an essential decreasing of part of typical forest species — sylvants and sylvants-pratants in species composition of the layer, and increasing of relative part of pratants, entering of ruderants.

Biodiversity of the coastal flora of Tripoli Province

This study aims to investigate the coastal plant biodiversity status of Tripoli Province. The result of the survey led to a collection and identification of 130 plant species belonging to 36 families and 105 genera, of which 29 species represented monocotyledons and 101 dicotyledons. Floristic analysis revealed the dominance of the family Asteraceae (24 species) followed by the family Poaceae (22 species). The results have also showed the predominance of the genera Juncus and Lotus with 4 species each. Life form and chorological spectra analyses showed the prevalence of therophytes, represented by 77 species, and the Mediterranean chorotypes with 46 species. Categorization of collected plant species according to their ecological types, revealed a variety of ecological types, with the prevalence of psammophytes, represented by 50 species.

CHANGE IN THE MESOSTRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LEAF OF SMALL-LEAVED LINDEN UNDER CONDITIONS OF TECHNOGENIC POLLUTION (ON THE EXAMPLE OF NABEREZHNYE CHELNY)

The article presents the results of a research of the mesostructural indicators of small-leaved linden leaves in different ecological types of urban plantations. The research was carried out in Naberezhnye Chelny, one of the leading centers of machine building in Russia, where the township-forming enterprise is PJSC “Kama Automobile Plant”. Small-leaved linden is widely used in landscaping of the city. Under the urban environment small-leaved linden exhibits significant increases in anthropogenic load (mainly, with an increase in the API value and formaldehyde content), the number of mesophyll cells and their linear sizes increase.