Forest vegetation zones of southern Siberia and current climate change

Data from the “Biome” information system were used to construct an ordination of zonal categories of vegetation cover in southern Siberia along the axes of heat supply and continentality. The changes of climate that occurred from the end of the 1960 s to 2007 are estimated. It is shown that they can lead to transformation of the composition of potential forest vegetation in a number of regions. We discuss the forecasted and observed variants of long-term successions in different sectoral-zonal classes of subtaiga and forest-steppe, including the risk of a reduction in the areas of separate forest-forming species.