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 <i>Anthyllidion barbae-jovis</i> in Croatia was documented with new relevés. Four new associations of the <i>Crithmo-Staticetalia</i> and four further new ones of the <i>Helichrysetalia italici</i> were described for the first time. A endemic alliance to the Vis archipelago (Croatia) and Tremiti islands (Italy), <i>Capparo orientalis-Aurinion leucadeae</i>, 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 <i>Helichrysetalia italici</i> and the <i>Centaureo-Campanuletalia</i> have arisen and they have been only partially solved with the validation of the <i>Capparo-Aurinion</i>. New investigations are required on this topic.

克罗地亚达尔马提亚海岸是地中海区域第二大群岛分布区，对地中海生物多样性贡献突出。其中维斯群岛（Vis Archipelago）尤为特殊，拥有极为丰富的特有及稀有植物类群。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句法分类位置。本数据集包含90份植物社会学样方记录，采用基于弦距离矩阵的沃德聚类法进行聚类分析，并实施非度量多维尺度排序。通过指示物种分析，识别出主要聚类样方的诊断类群。通过新增样方记录，证实了<i>Anthyllidion barbae-jovis</i>在克罗地亚的分布。本研究首次报道了<i>Crithmo-Staticetalia</i>下的4个新群丛，以及<i>Helichrysetalia italici</i>下的另外4个新群丛。为涵盖亚得里亚海中部未直接受海盐飞沫侵袭，但因强离岸风暴仍受海盐影响的海岸岩壁植物群落，研究验证了一个以维斯群岛（克罗地亚）与特雷米蒂群岛（意大利）为分布核心的特有群合<i>Capparo orientalis-Aurinion leucadeae</i>。研究结果结合《欧洲植被名录》（EuroVegChecklist）的欧洲句法分类框架展开讨论。本研究提出了<i>Helichrysetalia italici</i>与<i>Centaureo-Campanuletalia</i>之间交界区域的若干句法分类解释难题，仅通过<i>Capparo-Aurinion</i>的验证得到了部分解决。该领域仍需开展进一步研究。