Doctoral thesis- Vegetation dynamics on the island of Molat between 1910 and 2010
Abstract and Figures
During the last few decades vegetation changes, especially vegetation succession, became a very common phenomenon. Because many plant communities arose and are maintained by some form of agricultural activities (mowing, pasture, cutting, burning etc.), abandoning such traditional methods lead to vegetation succession and large changes in floristic composition of such, antecedent agriculturally used, areas. The island of Molat has been influenced by intensive agricultural activity during the first half of the 20th century. Afterwards depopulation began and local inhabitants decreased their agricultural activities. These demographic and agricultural changes were followed by vegetation. The largest area occupied at the beginning of the researched period was rocky grassland with 16.7 km2, while its area diminished by the end of the period, in 2006. to 0.45 km2. on the other hand maquis occupied 1.25 km2 in 1910, while in 2006 it spread to 12.2 km2. Along with mentioned changes a vegetation dynamics path, as well as stages appearing during the process of succession, was determined during the researched period. With phytosociological releves obtained and chronosequence method used this research resulted with a vegetation series present on the island. Check list of plant species was also added.
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In this paper, modern definition of island established by the IHO has been accepted, and classification of islands, islets, rocks and rocks awash has been proposed according to their areas. The coastline of the Croatian part of the Adriatic Sea was digitized from topographic maps produced at the scale of 1 : 25 000 (TM 25). Topographic maps used for digitization are more precise than the maps that were used in earlier works and consequently the data on the number of islands and their coastline lengths and areas are more precise. Polygons of islands were closed in GIS package AutoCAD Map 2000, and each was given its name. From the obtained database and classification of islands, islets and rocks, in the coastal sea area of the Republic of Croatia 79 islands, 525 islets, and 642 rocks and rocks awash, or a total of 1246 have been recorded. Furthermore, it has been established that on TM 25 the island of Cres has the largest area (405.70 km2), although in literature so far (including atlases) the island of Krk was most often cited as the largest island in the Adriatic Sea. The island of Pag has the longest coastline length of 302.47 km.
This study analyses the ecological and syntaxonomical characteristics of the Junipero sibiricae-Pinetum dalmaticae Domac (1956) 1965 association. This association is present only on higher altitudes of Biokovo Mountain situated on the eastern Adriatic coast. With its highest peak at an altitude of 1,762 m, Biokovo is one of the hotspots of plant endemism in Croatia. It is highly influenced by the Mediterranean climate which is expressed up to the higher parts of the mountain, although, due to its height, it has weakened montane and alpine conditions on the peaks. According to the present syntaxonomical solution, the researched association belongs to the submediterranean alliance Ostryo-Carpinion orientalis in the Quercetalia pubescentis order in the Querco-Fagetea class. Numerical and syntaxonomical analyses suggest that Junipero sibiricae-Pinetum dalmaticae on Biokovo differs from all other Dalmatian pine vegetation types. Cluster analysis, Indicator species analysis together with Nonmetric multidimensional scaling used to compare it to forests dominated by Pinus nigra s.l. from other Mediterranean areas (Greece, Iberian peninsula, Corsica and Sicily) suggested it should be classified in the Pino-Juniperetea class, the Juniperetalia haemisphaericae order, and the eastern Mediterranean Berberido craeticae-Juniperion foetidissimae alliance. The resemblance of Junipero sibiricae-Pinetum dalmaticae with eastern Mediterranean associations and its inclusion into mentioned syntaxa is confirmed phytosociologically and ecologically.
Following a change in 1997 of the boundaries of Krka National Park, comprehensive floristic field mapping of the new, North-East area of the park using basic MTB 1/64 field units was conducted during 2007 and 2008. In total, 507 plant taxa were recorded, including 92 new taxa for the park flora. The complete vascular flora of the park now consists of 1080 plant taxa, but new taxa are still expected to be discovered.
Focused on the Okavango Delta, Botswana, this research investigates (a) whether ecosystem signals derived from remotely sensed imagery can be decomposed using a harmonic regression, (b) if the deviations from the decomposed signal are correlated with observed flooding and fire regimes, and (c) the impact of explicitly including agriculture, settlement areas, and land management systems on the derived signals. A time-series of 85 TM/ETM + scenes spanning the period from 1989 through 2002 was used to decompose derived landscape dynamics into trends, annual and seasonal cycles, and long term oscillations. The harmonic fit largely defined by climatic periodicities (semi-annual, annual, and quasidecadol) accounted for 63 percent to 88 percent of the variance in the trajectories. The trends were found to be robust whether or not urban settlement or landscape management regimes were explicitly included, though there was a reversal of trend in agricultural areas.
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Prvi geografski znanstveni rad o otoku Molatu u zadarskom arhipelagu. Sveobuhvatna geografska rasprava o ovom otoku sadrži analizu elemenata prirodne osnove: geoloških, geomorfoloških, klimavegetacijskih i hidrogeografskih. Vrednovanje i značenje otoka i njegovih obala u prošlim razdobljima prezentirano je kroz povijesno-geografski retrospekt. Posebno je istaknuto značenje prometne povezanosti, kao i dileme novih razvojnih trendova uzrokovane ruralnim egzodusom i depopulacijom. Sociogeografska problematika detaljno obuhvaća pokazatelje stanovništva i naselja, toponimije, gospodarstva kao i perspektive i probleme razvoja u suvremenim okolnostima