Clustering of vegetation percentage in Artemisia sieberi communities with climatic, topographic and climatic factors (Case study: Yazd- Ardakan Plain)

Plant community’s classification provides an organization framework for design of future studies of the Functional features of communities or systems and the relationship between species and the environment of the studied region and since the plant species growing in an area are affected by environmental and biological factors on these regions, Therefore, identification and classification of vegetation distribution and climatic, soil and geomorphometry properties are necessary. In this research, vegetation Sampling was done by random-systematic method to place plots along four transects. In each plot, vegetation Cover information (name of plant species and percentage cover) was recorded, and at the beginning and end of each transect was digging the soil profile. Then, climatic and geomorphometry data were extracted. In order clustering regions based on climatic, soil, geomorphometry factors, was used hierarchical method and to calculate distance between clusters was used Ward's method. The results of regional clustering based on environmental factors showed that these results correspond with reality and areas with a zero percentage coverage of Artemisia sieberi in a cluster and areas with a moderate to high level of A. sieberi were found in other clusters. Generally, it can be concluded that there is a relationship between the environmental factors and the distribution pattern of the plants.