ESSAYS ON THE MODELING OF SPATIAL FLORISTIC DIVERSITY IN EUROPE - BRITISH-ISLES, WEST-GERMANY, AND EAST EUROPE

The correlation between floristic richness and geographic latitude was studied for the British Isles. West Germany, and eastern Europe betwe en 20-degrees-E and 34-degrees-E. In a linear regression, the gradient s are, respectively, of 42, 53 and 29 species of vascular plants per d egree of latitude for standard areas of 1,000 km2. Species abundance i n local floras of eastern Europe may be predicted by a linear regressi on with temperature totals during the growing season. Duration of the growing season and species abundance are related in the form of an hyp erbolic function y=1/(a-bx). The number of days with temperatures abov e 5-degrees-C is more effective for modelling than that with temperatu res above 0-degrees-C, or 10-degrees-C.