Changes in Vascular Flora of the Rzeszow Reservoir after 20 Years (SE Poland) (original) (raw)

2015, Polish Journal of Environmental Studies

Transformations of flora and vegetation result from natural processes taking place in the landscape as well as various types of human impact leading to synanthropization of the vegetation [1-3]. The changes are gradually accelerated and their scope and scale are increasing. This results from the growing human pressure on natural communities and their environment [4-6]. All the transformations of plant communities involve also other components of ecosystems. This leads to fundamental changes in functioning of the ecosystems [7, 8]. The intensity and types of human impact affect the scope and rate of changes, which are reflected in the decline of species typical of natural vegetation and the creation of new anthropogenic communities [2, 3, 9, 10]. At early stages of synanthropization, floristic diversity usually increases [2, 8, 11, 12], whereas intensification of human impact usually leads to a decline in diversity [13-16]. River valleys are one of the best models for research on species diversity [5, 17, 18], the process of synanthropization [1, 17, 19, 20], the dynamics of flora [21], as well as transformations of the vegetation associated with river val