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<p>The aims of this research are to assess the relationship between the concepts of hemeroby and naturalness of plant communities and to test the hypothesis about the ordinal nature of the response of social behavior types of plants under anthropogenic influence. Study area is the recreational zone of the Botanical Garden of Dnipro National University, named after Oles Gonchar, Dnipro City, Ukraine (48.43°N 35.05°E). Four polygons (105 relevés in each) were examined. Two polygons were in the zone after park reconstruction, and two were in the zone without reconstruction. The vegetation community ordination was performed using RLQ analysis. The Q-table was represented by eight dummy variables, which indicated social behavior types. The most important predictors of naturalness were aggressive alien species and invaders and weeds (positive dependence) and disturbance tolerants (negative dependence). The most important predictors of hemeroby were aggressive alien species (negative dependence) and ruderal competitors, invaders, and disturbance tolerants (positive dependence). Naturalness and hemeroby reflect different strategies for transforming a plant community and are not completely symmetrically opposed concepts. The response of a plant community is multivariate, so the naturalness metric based on the social behavior types is only able to distinguish well between the extreme states of a plant community, but is a poor measure for a more detailed assessment of naturalness.</p>
</abstract>

The aims of this research are to assess the relationship between the concepts of hemeroby and naturalness of plant communities and to test the hypothesis about the ordinal nature of the response of social behavior types of plants under anthropogenic influence. Study area is the recreational zone of the Botanical Garden of Dnipro National University, named after Oles Gonchar, Dnipro City, Ukraine (48.43°N 35.05°E). Four polygons (105 relevés in each) were examined. Two polygons were in the zone after park reconstruction, and two were in the zone without reconstruction. The vegetation community ordination was performed using RLQ analysis. The Q-table was represented by eight dummy variables, which indicated social behavior types. The most important predictors of naturalness were aggressive alien species and invaders and weeds (positive dependence) and disturbance tolerants (negative dependence). The most important predictors of hemeroby were aggressive alien species (negative dependence) and ruderal competitors, invaders, and disturbance tolerants (positive dependence). Naturalness and hemeroby reflect different strategies for transforming a plant community and are not completely symmetrically opposed concepts. The response of a plant community is multivariate, so the naturalness metric based on the social behavior types is only able to distinguish well between the extreme states of a plant community, but is a poor measure for a more detailed assessment of naturalness.

Assessment of Naturalness: The Response of Social Behavior Types of Plants to Anthropogenic Impact

Department of Ecology, General Biology, and Environmental Management

Bogdan Khmelnitsky Melitopol State Pedagogical University

Department of Geobotany, Pedology, and Ecology, Faculty of Biology and Ecology

Department of Garden and Park Art and Landscape Design, Faculty of Agronomics

Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University

Ekológia (Bratislava)

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The aims of this research are to assess the relationship between the concepts of hemeroby and naturalness of plant communities and to test the hypothesis about...

Assessment of Naturalness: The Response of Social Behavior Types of Plants to Anthropogenic Impact

Published Online: Jul 04, 2022

Page range: 135 - 146

Received: Nov 04, 2021

Accepted: Mar 18, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/eko-2022-0014

Keywords
vegetation, anthropogenic transformation, naturalness, hemeroby, RLQ ordination, plant indicator scales

© 2022 Nadiya Yorkina et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Assessment of Naturalness: The Response of Social Behavior Types of Plants to Anthropogenic Impact

Published Online: Jul 04, 2022

Page range: 135 - 146

Received: Nov 04, 2021

Accepted: Mar 18, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/eko-2022-0014

Keywordsvegetation, anthropogenic transformation, naturalness, hemeroby, RLQ ordination, plant indicator scales

© 2022 Nadiya Yorkina et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
vegetation, anthropogenic transformation, naturalness, hemeroby, RLQ ordination, plant indicator scales