Rare plant communities of the Vis Archipelago (Croatia)

The Dalmatian coast (Croatia) represents the second largest Archipelago within the Mediterranean area and contributes considerably to the Mediterranean biodiversity. The islands of the Vis Archipelago, in particular, contain an exceptional richness of endemic and rare plant taxa. The aim of this paper is to provide a phytosociological description of the rare plants communities occurring in the Vis Archipelago and define their syntaxonomic position in the Mediterranean context. A data-set consisting of 90 phytosociological relevés was subjected to cluster analysis (Ward’s method on a Chord distance matrix) and non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination. The Indicator Species Analysis was used to identify the diagnostic taxa of the main clusters of relevés. The occurrence of the Anthyllidion barbae-jovis in Croatia was documented with new relevés. Four new associations of the Crithmo-Staticetalia and four further new ones of the Helichrysetalia italici were described for the first time. A endemic alliance to the Vis archipelago (Croatia) and Tremiti islands (Italy), Capparo orientalis-Aurinion leucadeae, was validated in order to include plant communities of coastal rocky cliffs which are not directly exposed to sea-borne salt-spray but are still under the influence of sea-born salt due to the intense offing storms, in the middle Adriatic. The results were discussed in the light of the European syntaxonomic framework of the EuroVegChecklist. Several syntaxonomic interpretative problems regarding the interface between the Helichrysetalia italici and the Centaureo-Campanuletalia have arisen and they have been only partially solved with the validation of the Capparo-Aurinion. New investigations are required on this topic.

克罗地亚达尔马提亚海岸是地中海地区第二大群岛分布区，对地中海生物多样性贡献突出。其中维斯群岛（Vis Archipelago）独具特色，蕴藏着极为丰富的特有与稀有植物类群。本研究旨在对维斯群岛分布的稀有植物群落开展植物社会学描述，并明确其在地中海植物区系框架下的群丛分类学地位。本研究采用包含90份植物社会学样方记录的数据集，基于弦距离矩阵的沃德聚类法（Ward’s method）开展聚类分析，并结合非度量多维尺度排序（non-metric multidimensional scaling ordination）进行排序分析，同时通过指示物种分析（Indicator Species Analysis）识别主要聚类样方的诊断类群。本研究通过新增样方记录，证实了克罗地亚境内存在Anthyllidion barbae-jovis群落。本研究首次描述了Crithmo-Staticetalia下的4个新群丛，以及Helichrysetalia italici下的另外4个新群丛。此外，本研究验证了一个仅分布于克罗地亚维斯群岛与意大利特雷米蒂群岛的特有群丛组Capparo orientalis-Aurinion leucadeae，该群丛组涵盖亚得里亚海中部的沿海岩崖植物群落——这类群落虽未直接受海盐喷雾侵袭，但因近海强风暴仍受海盐气溶胶影响。研究结果结合《欧洲植被名录》（EuroVegChecklist）的欧洲群丛分类框架展开讨论。本研究发现Helichrysetalia italici与Centaureo-Campanuletalia之间存在若干群丛分类学解释难题，仅通过Capparo-Aurinion群丛组的验证部分解决了该问题，未来仍需针对该主题开展进一步研究。