Year: 2001, Issue: XLVII, Pages: 51 - 177
The concept of the life form of vegetation generalizes the concept of the life form of plants. The first concept reflects conformity and adaptation of vegetation to the environment (ecotope). It is based on an integral view on vegetation as well as an analysis of composition, spatial and functional structures and dynamics of vegetation. The vegetation life form concept is closely connected with the ecologo-physiognomic and the ecologo-phytocenological approaches. In this paper the life form of vegetation is used as the multidimensional and multilevel characteristic of vegetation which consists of the next more detailed characteristics: a general structural type (synusia, community and others); a general dynamic type (type of climaxes or successions); a spectrum (composition and importance value) of plant life forms. The importance of each plant life form is estimated by the qualitative scale according with its role in the spatial and functional structure and in the succession of the vegetation. In the classification the six syntaxa ranks of the ecologo-phytocenological approach are showed. The concept is applied for classification of forest, open woodland, shrubbery, tundra, mire and meadow vegetation of the taiga-goltsy landscapes of the Bureinskiy highland (the Russian Far East, the Amur-Uda interfluve). Plant synusiae, communities, aggregations and vegetation micro-, meso- and macrocomplexes have been classified and described.