S.S. Kholod
Vegetation and permafrost relief in Wrangel Island
Year: 2014, Issue: LXII, Pages: 241 - 313
The questions of the relationship of vegetation with permafrost landforms - patterned ground, baydzharahs - are considered. The position of syntaxa, allocated on the basis of floristic classification, is revealed in the space of particle size, diameter of the polygons, gipsometrical position of the edge with respect to its central part. For the purpose of detailed research into the nature of relationships of permafrost landforms and vegetation 11 structural- morphological types of patterned ground were allocated. Relationship between vegetation (syntaxonomical spectrum) and patterned ground has a stochastic nature: one structural and morphological type corresponds to a few syntax, and one syntaxon can occur in several types of patterned ground. The hypothesis of interconnected formation of soils and vegetation is offered. The initiators of the emergence of patterned ground are mud cracks that may later develop as frost ones. The process of becoming of vegetation is accompanied by expanding and deepening of cracks, which generate a characteristic pattern of vegetation (reticulated or polygonal-sell form). The processes of swelling of the central part of the spot, and wind denudation of top soil lead only to a certain adjustment provisions of the sod from the center, polygonal-sell system «soil - vegetation» is remains stable.