Formalized classification of the class Montio-Cardaminetea in Europe: towards a consistent typology of spring vegetation

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Authors	PETERKA Tomáš HÁJKOVÁ Petra JIROUŠEK Martin HINTERLANG Dirk CHYTRÝ Milan AUNINA Liene DEME Judit LYONS Melinda SEILER Hallie ZECHMEISTER Harald APOSTOLOVA Iva BEIERKUHNLEIN Carl BISCHOF Melanie BITA-NICOLAE Claudia BRANCALEONI Lisa CUSTEREVSKA Renata DENGLER Juergen DIDUKH Yakiv DITE Daniel FELBABA-KLUSHYNA Lyubov GARBOLINO Emmanuel GERDOL Renato IEMELIANOVA Svitlana JANSEN Florian JUUTINEN Riikka KAMBEROVIC Jasmina KAPFER Jutta KLÍMOVÁ Barbora KNOLLOVÁ Ilona KOLARI Tiina H M LAZAREVIC Predrag LUOSTARINEN Ringa MIKULÁŠKOVÁ Eva MILANOVIC Dordije MISERERE Luca MOESLUND Jesper Erenskjold MOLINA Jose A PEREZ-HAASE Aaron PETRAGLIA Alessandro PUGLISI Marta RUPRECHT Eszter ŠMERDOVÁ Eva SPITALE Daniel TOMASELLI Marcello VASSILEV Kiril HÁJEK Michal
Year of publication	2023
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	Preslia
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Science
Citation
Web	https://doi.org/10.23855/preslia.2023.347
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.23855/preslia.2023.347
Keywords	azonal habitat; expert classification system; phytosociology; plant community; supervised vegetation classification; unsupervised classification; vegetation survey; wetlands
Description	The class Montio-Cardaminetea includes vegetation of springs with constant water flow. These habitats, which function as islands for highly specialized and sensitive biota, are endangered by ongoing landscape and climatic changes. Although a harmonized classification into vegetation units is necessary for effective habitat conservation, there is currently no synthetic classification of the class Montio-Cardaminetea. Here a large set of vegetation-plot records was obtained from national and private databases. The aim was to validate the EuroVegChecklist classification scheme, search for additional ecologically meaningful vegetation types and develop an automatic system for classifying new plots from Europe. We formally defined the cores of eight of the ten EuroVegChecklist alliances: Caricion remotae, Cratoneurion commutati, Lycopodo europaei-Cratoneurion commutati, Epilobio nutantis-Montion, KoenigioMicrojuncion, Mniobryo-Epilobion hornemanii, Philonotidion seriatae (Cardamino-Montion) and Swertio perennis-Anisothecion squarrosi, which were also reproduced by unsupervised classifications. Both unsupervised and semi-supervised classifications further suggested two alliances not previously recognized in the EuroVegChecklist: Anthelion julaceae (liverwort dominated subalpine to alpine springs in highly oceanic regions in Britain) and Cratoneuro filicini-Calthion laetae (mesotrophic herb-rich subalpine and alpine springs). The unsupervised classifications mainly reflected the base saturation gradient, distinguishing between calcareous and non-calcareous springs. Therefore, it is suggested the order Montio-Cardaminetalia, which is broadly delimited in the EuroVegChecklist, be divided into two separate orders and the following three orders should be distinguished within the class Montio-Cardaminetea: CardaminoChrysosplenietalia (non-calcareous forest springs; Caricion remotae), Cardamino-Cratoneuretalia (calcareous springs; Cratoneurion commutati, Lycopodo europaei-Cratoneurion commutati) and Montio-Cardaminetalia (non-calcareous non-forest springs; all other alliances).
Related projects:	Centrum pro evropské vegetační syntézy (CEVS)