Static and dynamic approaches to landscape heterogeneity in the Hungarian forest‐steppe zone

Abstract. This paper describes the successional status of the vegetation in a clear‐felled dry oak woodland at the edge of the Hungarian forest‐steppe zone on the basis of a vegetation map. Due to a varied geomorphology of the colline landscape several so‐called landscape units can be distinguished. The patchwork on the vegetation map is evaluated using several, morphology‐based attributes (static morphological indices) traditionally applied in landscape ecology. In the ca. 100 years that elapsed since forest clear‐cut, xeric grassland species and steppe elements became more abundant and the former xeromesophilous vegetation – containing even some woodland components – is slowly turning into xeric grassland communities. The vegetation units mapped can be arranged into a hypothetical succession scheme in which successional distances (the number of steps between two stages) are determined. Based on the distances thus obtained, a new dynamic morphological index is introduced. This is applied to each landscape unit for the dynamic evaluation of successional vegetation, its results being compared with those obtained by static morphological indices.