Vegetation-environment interactions in a boreonemoral forest in east central Sweden

Abstract: The purposes of this study were to describe the vegetation, and to find out how vegetation and environment interact in a boreo-nemoral forest in east central Sweden, and to use the species data set to evaluate a newly produced and earlier not evaluated species composition prediction model. The importance of different environmental variables on the species composition and variation was investigated and analysed using multivariate methods. The most important variables for the species composition in this area were tree crown cover, shade and soil moisture. However, much of the variation was not explained by the environmental variables used in this study. Ellenberg indicator indices for pH, nitrogen content, light and soil moisture gave a low correlation to measured values. The prediction model failed to predict the species composition in the area.