Home – Home – Jornals – Geography and Natural Resources 2023 number 5S

Presented are the results from studying the spatial structure of vegetation in the foothills of the Malkhan Ridge (Kyakhta district of the Republic of Buryatia). On the basis of long-term field studies in combination with remote sensing methods, a vegetation map of the model site was compiled at a scale of 1:12 500 by highlighting homogeneous and heterogeneous units of landscape-topological level. It was found that the southeastern foothills of the Malkhan Range are characterized by mountainous expositional forest-steppes in which pine forests, shrub thickets and steppe communities of different composition form a complex spatial structure of vegetation. Pine herbaceous forests form macrocombinations with birch spirea-grass forests on shady and semi-shady slopes of spurs. The slopes of southern exposures have a more complex vegetation structure; here, an ecological series of litho-topological genesis is distinguished according to the catena levels. The specificity of the study area is formed by communities of Siberian apricot (Armeniaca sibirica), occupying the warmest habitats in the landscape at transit positions. Homogeneous phytocenoses of sod-grass (and forbs) steppes, and also complexes of rhizomatous-grass (and hard-sedge) steppes were described for the rear parts and the bottom of the creek valley. It is established that the spatial structure of vegetation of the foothills of the Malkhan Ridge reflects its boundary role in the formation of modern habitats of plant species. It is revealed that in the conditions with special microclimate formed on the southern foothills of the Malkhan Ridge, refugial areas with high concentration of Dauro-Manchurian and East Asian plant species have persisted.