Ancient Woodlands' and Synanthropic Plants as Indicators of Maintenance of the Forest Communities in the Nature Reserves of the Oświęcim Basin

Abstract

The landscape of the Oświęcim Basin, naturally dominated by forest communities, has been strongly transformed due to the long-term activities of man. Across time and space, it has been stamped by pond management and agriculture to the highest degree. Despite such a strong transformation of the natural environment fragments of forests which reflect the peculiarities of forest vegetation of the macroregion still occur. These are the Żaki and the Przeciszów nature reserves. The goal of the phytosociological studies done within their borders was the assessment of the Tilio-Carpinetum phytocoenoses which dominate in the reserves, regarding their: maintenance, naturalness, anthropological changes and compliance to anthropopressure, as well as natural values. Therefore, analyses related to the share of: character species, ancient woodland indicators and synanthropes were performed for purposes of the study. It has been proposed that transformations of the forest communities be assessed using the new formula of floristic naturalness coefficient (WNF), based on the share of ancient woodland and synanthropic species.