Hierarchical organization of inter-component relations in East-European forest landscapes

Abstract

The paper focuses on revealing the rationales for hierarchy of forest geosystems on the basis of specific space of relations between the landscape components and levels of relief organization. Case studies were performed in Udmurtia, Kostromskaya and Arkhangelskaya regions. The series of multiple regression models were used to relate properties of the landscape units to the properties of relief in several square neighborhoods of various sizes. Resonance level of relations with relief was determined by the maximum values of explained variance among the statistically significant equations. The analysis resulted in classification of landscape components' properties by its sensibility to the properties of several highetorder geosystems. The proposed method enables the determination of size of the holistic geosystems and its combinations with correlated changes of plant cover, soils and relief in space.