Session

Forest-steppe grasslands are on a fine scale extremely species-rich ecosystems where we can find even more than 100 species in an area of 10 m2. Their species composition is unique, nonetheless, it is repetitive in isolated localities of occurrence. The most species-rich and precious segments of forest-steppe grasslands belong to Brachypodio pinnati-Molinietum arundinacae association. It is a community described in White Carpathians, the western edge of the forest-steppe zone that continues further through central-eastern Europe, Romania, up to western Ukraine. This association is characterized by a mixture of species with different ecological needs – their cooccurrence is thus rare and determined by specific conditions such as landscape heterogeneity, land use, geographical position, bedrock, etc. This community used to be considered unique to the area of White Carpathians. However, recent studies support its distribution on the periphery of the entire Western and Eastern Carpathians, and in some adjacent regions. It is interpreted as a relic of late-glacial and early-Holocene ecosystems that persisted in mesic habitats due to continuous disturbances such as grazing by large herbivores, fire, and later on, it also became maintained by activities connected with human settlement. Besides the studies from the Carpathians’ region, there are also numerous data in the literature confirming the appearance of similar vegetation in south-eastern and southern Europe, that has been very sparsely researched so far. This project aims to investigate the connection between the Pericarpathians’ forest-steppe grasslands and analogical vegetation types in the Submediterranean areas. We focus on their composition with many shared species, and on the ecological factors crucial for the development of such habitats. This part of the project is based on vegetation sampling including recording of environmental factors such as bedrock type, pH, relief and climate data, management type, etc. Next, we intend to model the past, potential, and future distribution, and species richness of these grasslands. We will combine the environmental and historical data and use them to search for areas from where such species-rich meadows are not known yet.