Characteristics of the ground vegetation formed under the effect of curly birch stands in Zaonezhye, Republic of Karelia

The articles gives an analysis of the species composition of the ground vegetation formed under the effect of curly birch plantations of two ages (15 and 35 years old) in sites situated in the Zaonezhye seed orchard (Medvezhyegorsky District, Republic of Karelia), where pre-planting operations had strongly damaged the plant cover and disturbed the soil structure. Currently, average total ground vegetation cover is 70%. Surveys of both sites revealed a total of 38 species, including 32 vascular plants (chiefly forest-dwelling), 4 lichens, and 2 mosses. Among the vascular plants, 94% are native and only 6% are non-native. Although the sites are quite similar in the ground vegetation composition there are some distinctions too. To wit, the 35-year-old site was found to harbor 28 vascular plant species with Calluna vulgaris (20% of the total cover), Calamagrostis arundinacea (20%), Convallaria majalis (15%), and Avenella flexuosa (10%) prevailing. The 15-year-old stand contained 19 vascular plant species, the dominants being C. vulgaris (40%) and Vaccinium vitis-idaea (10%). The prevalent groups in the herb-subshrub layer were: in relation to light – semiheliophytes, in relation to soil moisture – mesophytes, in relation to soil fertility – mesotrophs. The distinctive features of the ground vegetation formed under the impact of curly birch plantations are primarily due to the different durations of the impact, the amount of birch litter input to the soil (with a later addition of herbaceous-subshrub litterfall), as well as, to some extent, to the species composition of the vegetation growing in the adjacent undisturbed forest area and to microtopographic roughness. It is concluded that forest crop planting is the most promising method for securing curly birch regeneration and that the Zaonezhye seed orchard is a good example of curly birch re-introduction in situ and can be used in the future both for applied purposes and in various sorts of theoretical research, acting, in particular, as an object for botanical, physiological, biochemical, or molecular genetic studies.

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