Abstract
The diversity of vascular plant species at two border railway stations, Chop in southwestern Ukraine and Čierna nad Tisou in southeastern Slovakia, was studied and compared. The Chop station flora consisted of 240 taxa, while Čierna nad Tisou had 309 taxa. 173 taxa were common to both stations, 67 taxa occurred only in Chop and 136 only in Čierna nad Tisou. Native species prevailed over alien at both stations; neophytes dominated over archaeophytes in Chop, whereas archaeophytes were dominant in Čierna nad Tisou. The floristic composition of the Chop and Čierna nad Tisou railway stations included species which were mostly hemicryptophytes and therophytes, with European and Asian origin, predominantly insect pollinated, reproducing by seeds, mostly competitors, urbanoneutral or moderately urbanophobic, and growing in habitats moderately influenced by human activity. The native species were predominantly urbanophobic hemicryptophytes while the alien species were mainly urbanophilic therophytes that were more thermophilous than the natives. The most abundant families at both stations were Asteraceae and Poaceae. The greater species diversity in Čierna nad Tisou and the differences in species composition between the stations probably arise from the size, structure and treatment of the station, the station surroundings, and the size of the associated city. Species Euphorbia davidii, Galeopsis angustifolia, Geranium purpureum, and Grindelia squarrosa are discussed as examples of ferroviatic species migration.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the deceased Dr. Vladimír Jehlík for his help in the field. We thank Ing. Ľubomír Mitas from the Railways of the Slovak Republic for providing information about the station Čierna nad Tisou and Olexander A. Pushkash from the Uzhgorod Directorate of Railway Transportation for providing information about the Chop station. We also thank Dr. Jacob Bauer for English revision. This research was supported by Ukrainian-Slovak joint research project No. 18 and by VEGA grant 2/0154/17.
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Májeková, J., Zaliberová, M., Andrik, E.J. et al. A comparison of the flora of the Chop (Ukraine) and Čierna nad Tisou (Slovakia) border railway stations. Biologia 76, 1969–1989 (2021). https://doi.org/10.2478/s11756-020-00592-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/s11756-020-00592-x