Vegetation map of the “Kulikovo Pole” museum-reserve (Tula Region)
Authors: Golovina E. O. 
Published: February 2025

The large-scale (1 : 10 000) vegetation map of the “Kulikovo Pole” museum-reserve (Tula Region) is presented. The “Kulikovo Pole” museum-reserve is situated in the northeastern part of the Central Russian Upland within the forest-steppe zone (Isachenko, Lavrenko, 1980). The study area has undergone long-term agricultural use, so the arable land is accounted for up to 80 % of the area until recently. The natural vegetation — forests, meadows, steppes — is concentrated in the small unsuitable areas, mainly in river valleys and ravines. In recent decades, some reduction in the area of arable land had happened and, as a result, a wide spread of fallow land was recorded (Burova, 2018). The main attention was paid to mapping of old-field vegetation, which makes it possible to show the diversity of serial plant communities, their successional status (the successional status of fallow vegetation communities was determined based on their biomorphic and phytosociological spectra (Golovina, 2015)) and direction of change. Another goal was to reflect the set and patterns of spatial distribution of natural vegetation in ravines and river valleys, where different types of plant communities replace each other over a short distance.

The vegetation map is based on the author field observations and a set of relevés (about 600). The vegetation was visually interpreted using GeoEye satellite image. A detailed field survey was carried out in 2012–2015.

The plant community classification was done using the dominant (ecological-phytocoenotic) approach. The map legend consists of 146 basic units, the main mapping units of homogeneous vegetation were associations, community types and their variants. For heterogeneous vegetation, the combinations succession series (in case of old-field vegetation and suchlike) and ecological series (in case of hygrophytic vegetation of the ravine bottoms) were used as mapping units.

The combinations of plant communities on the slopes of ravines and river valleys are the most complex. In this case, the basic legend number shows all plant communities characteristic of a given relief element, for example, for slopes of a certain exposure. After the name of plant community, its counting number is indicated in parentheses. Naturally, the representation of habitats and plant communities is different; a complete combination is not always noted. Specific sets of plant communities are given under extensions (marked with a letter indices) of the basic legend numbers in the form of counting numbers of communities connected by a “+” sign.

Combinations of plant communities of certain succession series are considered as mapping unit “succession series”; obviously, the successions have anthropogenic origin. The most difficult to map are the series of old-field vegetation. In general, at the time period of the survey, the restoration of vegetation on fallow lands was proceeding from weed and ruderal annual and biennial plants (Erigeron canadensis, Carduus acanthoides, Lactucaserriola, etc.) communities via Elytrigia repens communities and perennial dicotyledons (ruderal and apophytes) communities to Poa angustifolia communities. Apparently, this series can be considered as generalized demutation series. In the legend, using numbers, it is divided into private series. The latter are distinguished based on the composition of perennial dicotyledons communities. Under the basic legend numbers, the private series of communities are usually given; the counting number is indicated in parentheses. Specific sets of plant communities are given under extensions (marked with a letter indices) of the basic legend numbers in the form of communities counting numbers, connected by mathematical symbols “=”, “>” and “<”, showing the areal ratio of communities. In the sequence of letter indices from “a” onwards, the advancement of communities and the area occupied by more advanced communities increases.

The ratio of areas of the plant communities’ main types is shown in Table 1. The cultivated fields cover 44.1 % and fallow lands — 23.0 %, which together occupy almost 70 % of the area, which is natural in the conditions of the agricultural landscape. Meadows, mainly steppe meadows, account for 14.6 % of the area, forests — 3.5 %. The area covered of other types of plant communities is 0.2–1.1 % of the total area of the museum-reserve.