Relationships between Vegetation and Ecological variablesin Palangan Habitat, Aghdagh Protected Area of Ardabil Province

Knowledge about plant communities and their relationships with ecological factors is one of the most important issues in conservation ecology particularly in the recent decades. The current investigation aimed to study the vegetation ecology of Palangan habitat in Aghdagh Protected area, Ardabil province. In order to collect species and environmental data, a total of 45 plots along a 1500 m elevational gradient and an interval of 100 m were surveyed. Braun-Blanquet scales were used to evaluate vegetion cover of each plot. Floristic and ecological characteristics of the area were studied along elevational gradient using DCA ordination and TWINSPAN classification methods. Four vegetation groups detremined in TWINSPAN were also identified in the DCA diagram and their species and environmnetal characters have been evalyated by one-way ANOVA. Based on these anlayses, altitude and slope were the most important ecological factors affecting the vegetation of the area. Endemicity values are not significatly changed among different altitudinal belts, but in stead, the number of therophytes and plants with wide distributional ranges are significam,ty different along elevation. The relatiohsip between altitude and species richness, like to other mountainus systems, show almost unimodal pattern which peaks at 1800 m.