Syntaxonomy Of Peatland Vegetation: Case Study Of The Central Zone Of Lake Baikal Eastern Coast

Peatland vegetation is dominant among azonal vegetation types within the central zone of Lake Baikal eastern coast. In order to classify the phytosociological diversity of peatland vegetation, the supervised k-means clustering method was applied. According to the main concept of the method, the unidentified dataset from this study was subjected to the classification among identified units (a priorigroups) from the north-eastern area of Lake Baikal. The unidentified dataset is composed of 55 releves, which were collected in the central zone of the Lake Baikal eastern coast. The identifieda priorigroups comprise 12 associations distinguished according to the Braun-Blanquet approach. Those associations are based on classification of 138 releves, which were taken in the course of studies of the north-eastern part of Lake Baikal, such as Svyatoi Nos Peninsula and Barguzinskiy mountain range. As a result, we obtained the assignment of unidentified releves among thosea priorigroups. The supervised k-means clustering performed well in assignment of unidentified releves toa priorigroups and proved to be a useful tool for the classification and syntaxonomical positioning of unidentified peatland vegetation. The peatland vegetation was classified into classes:Oxycocco-SphagneteaandScheuchzerio-Caricetea nigrae.