Typification of plant populations on the basis of their ontogenetic spectra
L. A. ZHIVOTOVSKY
Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Keywords: plants, age state, development periods, ontogenetic spectrum, types of cenopopulations
Abstract
Knowledge of the age structure of plant populations is important for assessing the current state and predicting the population dynamics and related components of phytocenoses, since the load on the environment is different for different age groups. According to the scheme of age periodization of plant ontogenesis proposed by T. A. Rabotnov and A. A. Uranov, about a dozen main ontogenetic states are distinguished. Accordingly, each population sample represents an ordered row of frequencies of these states - the so-called ontogenetic spectrum. However, there are ambiguous interpretations of the role of some ontogenetic states in the classification of cenopopopulations, as well as statistical problems of estimating the profiles of ontogenetic spectra. A unification of approaches to typification of the age structure and indices of plant cenopopulations, based on the reduction of the ontogenetic spectrum to a standard scale of development periods - pregenerative, generative, and postgenerative, is proposed. From these perpespectives, classical types of cenopopopulations (invasive, regressive, invasive-regressive, and normal), different variants of normal cenopopopulations, age structure indices, and possible irregularity of the period scale are considered.
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