Home – Home – Jornals – Siberian Journal of Forest Science 2024 number 4

The ongoing climate changes in the boreal zone affect carbon sequestration capacity of forest ecosystems. Thus, the environmental conditions and taxonomic diversity of the plant cover of ecosystems determine the relevance of studying the fractional composition of their phytomass and pigment complex in the stability and regulation of the activity of the photosynthetic apparatus. Living ground cover is typically underestimated or excluded when estimating forest phytomass due to the lack of standard equations. In this study, we assessed the stock of aboveground phytomass and developed a set of allometric equations for widespread species of living ground cover growing in the mixed forest of the middle taiga: Vaccinium vitis-idaea L., Ledum palustre L., Vaccinium uliginosum L., Vaccinium myrtillus L., Linnaea borealis L. The highest percentage of occurrence in the forest ecosystems (60 %) is characterized by the species V. vitis-idaea . The dominant species is V. myrtillus , the reserve of which is 21.2 ± 52.8 g/m². The ratio of the average supply of leaf phytomass to wood phytomass ranged from 0.08 ± 0.17 for V. myrtillus to 0.73 ± 1.04 for V. vitis-idaea . Leaf area index and photosynthetic pigments for the study objects were also determined. The index varied from от 0.027 ± 0.062 м² м^-2 for V. myrtillus to 0.097 ± 0.077 м² м^-2 for L. palustre . In the mixed forest of the middle taiga zone, the largest amount of chlorophylls and carotenoids was found in the leaves of V. uliginosum , and the smallest - in V. vitis-idaea . The photosynthetic apparatus of the studied species is characterized by a fairly stable accumulation of photosynthetic pigments belonging to the light-harvesting complex.