The concept of geo-biotope as a possible superior site unit for differentiation of forest management

The paper proposes and justifies an alternative concept of aggregation of forest site types in higher units for purposes of differentiation of forest management. Analysis of variance was performed for both: the natural occurrence of tree species in reserves, as well as the production potential of tree species measured on the representative plots according to Zlatnik´s altitudinal vegetation zones and edaphictrophic series. Based on the results of this analysis, an aggregation of forest site types was suggested along the elevation gradient of climatop, and along the edaphic-trophic and the edaphic-hydric gradients of edaphotop. By intersection of such created 32 categories of geotope with the basic formation groups of forest habitats by Braun-Blanquet geo-botanical school, 53 reconstructive geo-biotopes were formed. The proposed unit was compared using the F-test, Akaike information criterion (AIC), and the index of classification efficiency (EQ) with current typological units in terms of its ability to describe the variability of the analyzed parameters. Finally, the qualitative association of the compared classification models with the European classification systems was assessed. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that the site unit geo-biotop is at least comparable with currently used unit MGFT, with the number of categories lower by 72%.