MOSSES OF THE WESTERN PART OF THE CHUKCHI HIGHLANDS. 3. INTERDEPENDENCE OF PERCENT COVER VALUES OF MOSSES AND VASCULAR PLANTS

Abstract

In previous publications (Kholod, Afonina, 2023a, b) the dependences of the number of moss species and the values of moss percent cover in the western part of the Chukchi Highlands on a number of abiotic factors were considered. This article discusses the interdependence of the percent cover values of mosses and vascular plants in this area. On the slopes of most aspects, an increase in the percent cover values of vascular plants to a value of 65–75% is accompanied by an increase in the percent cover values of mosses (up to 40–70%), which decreases with a further increase in the percent cover values of vascular plants. Two groups of bryocenotypes, one of them being formed on dry, relatively steep slopes of the southern and western aspects with rapidly descending snow, and the other on wet, snow-covered gentle slopes of the northern and eastern aspects, characterize 2 types of natural environments of the Pleistocene-Holocene: cooling with active freezing of loose strata of slopes, and warming with intense permafrost melting and activation of slope processes, respectively. The linear relationship between the values of the percent cover of vascular plants and mosses, on the one hand, and the area of unpaved soil, on the other, is considered as a model of the settlement of soils by mosses during the transition from cold climatic epochs to warm ones. In such transitional epochs, vascular plants have an advantage in the percent cover values at the initial stage, then, with the growth of mosses, the increase in the percent cover values of vascular plants slows down, which is a manifestation of the regulatory influence of mosses through the availability of accessible water and a number of other parameters.