Dynamics of natural reforestation on disturbed lands in the south of the Far East of Russia

The restoration of disturbed lands is becoming an increasingly urgent problem due to the increase in anthropogenic pressure on the environment. Abandoned objects of technogenic significance for the most part attract the attention of ecologists of the Russian Far East. The aim of research is to study the features of the dynamics of changes in vegetation during overgrowth of the territory of a technogenic object. Research objectives are to determine the floristic similarity between different stages of succession, the ratio of ecological groups of plants at different stages of restoration using ecological scales, comparing the research results with real soil properties. The object of research was erosion processes on soils disturbed during the construction of industrial and recreational facilities, as exemplified by the Ussuriyskaya Heat Eelectropower Station. The main research methods are geobotanical description of the terrestrial biomass of the herbaceous or shrub layer (5 replicates per site), comparative analysis of the floristic composition, calculation of the Jaccard floristic similarity coefficient, monitoring of the ground cover of the studied areas, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), carried out using the least significant difference test (LSD). In the course of research, we carried out a classification of vegetation at different stages of restoration according to A.A. Nitsenko (1969) and found that the maximum value of the coefficient of floristic similarity according to Jaccard is observed between phytocenoses of a 10-year-old site and a forest of natural origin (up to 47 %), this confirms the transformation of the species composition, which has undergone almost half of the changes. Presumably, the main factor limiting the diversity of species at the research object is the processes of water and wind erosion. The research results can be used in organizing forest reclamation activities in the south of the Russian Far East.