From expert-based scores to community-derived indicator values: Reconstruction of species hemeroby scales from vegetation composition
Abstract
Hemeroby is widely used as an integral indicator of the anthropogenic transformation of ecosystems and vegetation. In most existing approaches, community-level hemeroby is estimated by averaging expert-based species indicator values. However, this procedure implicitly assumes that species-level autecological characteristics can be directly aggregated into synecological prope r ties of plant communities. Such an assumption is rarely explicitly evaluated and may become especially problematic when hemeroby scales are transferred to regions with different environmental conditions, land-use histories, and species pools. The present study aimed to reconstruct and calibrate a regional hemeroby indicator system for the Steppe zone of Ukraine by linking species indicator values to the compositional structure of plant communities. The analysis was based on 10,665 vegetation relevés representing a broad gradient of anthropogenic transformation across Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, including nat u ral, semi-natural, urban, agrarian, and technogenic habitats. Species hemeroby values were initially derived from the expert-based system of Frank and Klotz, adapted for Ukraine by Goncharenko. Community composition was analysed using canonical corr e spondence analysis and partial constrained ordination. Ecological gradients estimated using Didukh phytoindication scales were included as conditioning variables to separate the anthropogenic component of floristic variation from natural environmental differentiation. Species positions along the extracted hemeroby-related gradient were subsequently used to reconstruct regional indicator values. The results demonstrated that anthropogenic transformation represents an independent and ecologically inte r pretable component of regional vegetation differentiation. The extracted hemeroby gradient was associated primarily with di s turbance severity, mowing frequency, species abundance structure, and the occurrence of adventive and cultivated species. The reconstructed scale substantially reduced the within-community inconsistency of species hemeroby values compared with the original expert-based system. Communities with high hemeroby showed pronounced compositional convergence and lower internal heterogeneity of species indicator values. The study demonstrates that species hemeroby values can be directly reco n structed from the compositional organisation of vegetation communities. Unlike traditional expert-based systems, the proposed approach derives both species scores and community positions from the same latent ordination space. Consequently, the abu n dance-weighted aggregation of species values constitutes an internally coherent reconstruction of community position along the anthropogenic transformation gradient, rather than an arbitrary averaging procedure. The developed framework provides a the o retically grounded, regionally calibrated basis for assessing ecosystem transformation in the Steppe zone of Ukraine and can be applied to studies of vegetation naturalness, restoration dynamics, biodiversity monitoring, and landscape assessment.References
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