Grasslands in the Polish Carpathians

Project

The phytosociological database “Grasslands in the Polish Carpathians” has been in development since 2007 in the Institute of Nature Conservation at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow. Its objective is to gather, as far as is possible, the most complete phytosociological data sets (both historical and contemporary) pertaining to semi-natural grassland vegetation in the Polish part of the Carpathians. This region has undergone dynamic transformations associated with the changes in agriculture which have intensified since the final years of the 20th century. Particular emphasis is placed on the associations and communities representing the following selected Natura 2000 habitats:

  • 6230 Species-rich Nardus grasslands on siliceous substrates in mountain areas (Nardetalia);
  • 6410 Molinia meadows on calcareous, peaty or clayey-siltladen soils (Molinion caeruleae);
  • 6510 Lowland hay meadows (Arrhenatherion elatioris) extensively used;
  • 6520 Mountain hay meadows (Polygono-Trisetion and Arrhenatherion) extensively used.

In principle, the database should be a tool to evaluate the diversification of vegetation in the Carpathian grasslands, as well as diagnosing their status, and forecasting their preservation.

Since 2009, thanks to finance provided by the grant (No. N305 283137) of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, entitled „Phytosociological database for assessment of the state, diversity and changes of grassland vegetation in Polish Carpathians”, it has become possible to actively supplement the resources of the database, with data from the regions of the Carpathians least represented in phytosociological references. From 2009-2013, over 1800 phytosociological relevés have been performed, the majority of which were completed on sites not studied earlier, such as in the grasslands of foothills and lower montane zone of some ranges in the Beskidy mountains. At present, the database contains 5893 relevés from either published or unpublished sources.

The database is being developed and managed using the Turboveg software package which communicates well with software sed in analysis of vegetation data. The principal portion of its resources consists of phytosociological relevés, obtained in generally defined mesophilous grasslands from the alliance Arrhenatherion elatioris, together with transitional communities linked to moist grasslands of the alliances Calthion palustris and Alopecurion pratensis, pastures of the alliance Cynosurion, and matgrass communities of the order Nardetalia. Apart from these, data is also collected from Molinia meadows which are rarely found in the Carpathians, as well as from matgrass swards of the alliances Nardion and Violion caninae.

Botanists from a number of different institutions, principally of universities and national parks are involved in the studies.

More details of the organisation, structure, and resources of the database are given in this paper: Korzeniak J. 2013. Scope and data set of the phytosociological database “Grasslands in the Polish Carpathians”. Acta Soc. Bot. Pol. 82(3): 237-242. (link)

The database “Grasslands in the Polish Carpathians” was registered in the Global Index of Vegetation Databases under the title of “Grasslands in the Polish Carpathians” EU-PL-002

Other vegetation-plot databases

Polish Vegetation Database – developed at the University of Wroclaw, which is a dynamically expanding domestic (national) phytosociological database (link)

Global Index of Vegetation Databases (GIVD) – „database of databases”, an on-line portal containing metadata on botanical databases across the world (link).