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Mountain-forest brown soils are common in the zone of mesophilic forests. The vegetation is represented mainly by beech, beech-hornbeam groups with an admixture of maple and ash, forming a dense forest canopy, strongly shading the soil surface. As dead-cover forests, they are characterized by a weak development of undergrowth and herbaceous cover with abundant accumulation of forest litter. The climate ensures the development of lush, high-quality forest vegetation with a predominance of Eastern beech and Caucasian hornbeam. Forest cover is 80% to 90%, the forest type of soil formation prevails here. Studies have established that phytomass reserves in oak-hornbeam forests are 116-274 t/ha, and in shrub-herbaceous cenoses, plant biomass varies within 27-35 t/ha. In these soils, the penetration of humus into deeper horizons is associated with the active participation of the root system of herbaceous plants in humus formation. Mountain-forest brown soils developing under deciduous broad-leaved groups are characterized by the annual accumulation of a large amount of forest litter 12-13 t/ha. There is an active interaction of the decomposition products of the litter with the mineral part of the soil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research is dedicated to the phytoindicative evaluation of explored areas according to the integrated evaluation of an individual and sustainable development breach of the tree plant Quercus longipes Stev. which developed in the natural and urboecosystem on the Samur-Divichi lowland of Azerbaijan. The obtained results were compared with the same species of plants cultivated in the Absheron region, which is environmentally tougher. The absolute prices of the level change of fluctuating bilateral asymmetry’s indicators of a morphometric sign have been statistically processed in special software on the leaves of Q. longipes. The pollution hypothesis of the environment has been checked by the ANOVA test and the availability to give an initial forecast about the environmental quality has been determined within the confidential interval limits. Fluctuating asymmetry refers to the non-directional, small, random deviations from symmetry caused by developmental instability. The results of the research showed that an early warning model allowed to predict how much the contamination risk of investigated areas might be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]