Contents

Acknowledgements / 7

Part One

Theoretical overview / 9

Introduction and the research objectives / 9

Adaptation as an expression of adjustment by a species to environmental conditions / 11

Responses of plants to stress-related factors / 12

Spatial organization of populations / 15

Part Two

European white birch (Betula pendula ROTH) — general characterization of the species / 23

The developmental biology of birch and adaptation capabilities of the species / 23

Part Three

Description of the study areas / 31

The zinc-lead dump / 31

The mine waste dump / 33

The research site in Mirów / 34

The research site in Łodygowice / 35

Climatic conditions of the studied areas / 36

Part Four

Material and study methods / 39

The research material and period / 39

Field studies / 40

Laboratory tests / 41

Geostatistical method / 42

The spatial variability of B. pendula seedlings / 45

Statistical methods / 47

Part Five

Results / 49

The photosynthetic apparatus of birch / 49

The content of chlorophyll a in birch leaves / 49

The content of chlorophyll b in birch leaves / 52

The content of carotenoids in birch leaves / 54

The ratio of chlorophyll a to chlorophyll b / 57

The number of birch leaves on selected twigs / 59

The surface area of a lamina / 62

Biometric characteristics of generative organs / 65

The number of staminate inflorescences / 65

The number of pistillate inflorescences / 68

The length of staminate inflorescences / 70

The length of pistillate inflorescences / 73

The length of fructification axes / 76

The number of nuts per fructification / 78

The number of empty nuts per fructification / 81

The number of full nuts per fructification / 83

Efficiency of pollen germination / 86

Germination of birch seeds / 87

Germination capacity / 87

Germination energy expressed by the Pieper coefficient / 90

Correlation analysis of the obtained results / 91

Geostatistical analysis / 92

Visualization of variables / 92

Preliminary analysis of the collected data / 95

Calculation of empirical variograms and selection of theoretical variograms / 97

Envelopes of a variogram / 103

Statistical analysis of biometric parameters / 106

Part Six

Discussion / 109

Influence of environmental stress-related factors on the content of photosynthetic pigments / 109

Generative reproduction of silver birch and factors affecting reproduction success / 114

Influence of the selected habitat factors (moisture, solar radiation intensity) on the shape of spatial structure of seedlings / 119

Characteristics of biometric parameters of specimens growing in different parts of the postindustrial dumping ground and in the area relatively free of post-industrial contamination / 123

Part Seven

Conclusions / 127

References / 129

Streszczenie / 139

Zusammenfassung / 141

• Title: The biology and ecology of "Betula pendula" Roth on post-industrial waste dumping grounds: the variability range of life history traits
• Author: Izabella Franiel
• ISBN: 978-83-801-2526-1, 9788380125261
• Date of issue: 2015-09-04
• Format: Ebook
• Item ID: e_1p19
• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego