Spatial Variability of Vegetation in the Changing Climate of the Baikal Region

The systems of environments contact sites are somewhat models reflecting practically all changes occurring in any hierarchic systems. Recently different approaches to the assessment of such processes as paragenesis manifestation in the environments are proposed. There are some suppositions on manifestation of polyzonality (binarity) of the environments, especially at the local level of their organization of the background of climate changes. Here, on the author’s opinion, the geomorphology peculiarities and edaphic conditions in polyzonality formation at the regional level of the environment organization are manifested. The validity of use of con‐ crete terms characterizing one or other environments is discussed. In particular, conclusions on the opportunity of use the term “zonal habitat” in the characterization of flat interfluve vegeta‐ tion and soils are very curious. In this context, the use of polysystem modeling method and of ones of systematic mapping analysis of environments organization and dynamics will promote resolution of concrete tasks for indication and forecasting of environments contact systems. The vegetation structure of the Prebaikalia reveals a certain relation to the evolution history of the natural environment of the entire Baikal region. In the tertiary era the territory of the presentday Prebaikalia was occupied by broad-leaved forests where valleys and dry depressions between mountains were dominated by xerophyte grass communities (Grichuk, 1955; Dylis, Reshchi‐ kov, Malyshev, 1965). Tectonic movements and changes of climate were responsible for the disappearance of the heat-loving flora. The landscapes of the Baikal region have attained their modern character during the last 10-12 thousand years. The development of the vegetative cover in the Prebaikalia dates back to the Holocene (Belova, 1975, 1985; Savina, 1986; Bezrukova, 1996, 2002). Climate fluctuations over the course of the Holocene were responsible for the characteris‐ tic properties of spatial variability and dynamics of the interrelationship between the various types of vegetation in the region, in the character of changes in the species composition, of the