Abstract
The article presents the studying outcomes from 2014 to 2019 of vegetation cover of Zhetysu Alatau mountains, and also it summarized types of compiled ecological-phytocenotic classification. The main methods of compiling environmental classifications are briefly represented, and the advantages and disadvantages of each approach are described: dominant and determinant. While creating of vegetation classification, the dominant approach to the allocation of taxa is adopted. The taxonomic hierarchy includes units: vegetation types, class formation (ecological-physiognomic type), group association. The vegetation cover of Zhetysu Alatau belons to 6 types of vegetation: forest, shrubby, meadow, swamp, steppe, deserts. Each type includes ecological and physiognomic vegetation categories (20 in total): forests – dark coniferous, small-leaved, floodplain; shrub thickets – petrophytic, halophytic, mesophytic and mesoxerophytic along river valleys, evergreen elfin woods; meadows – high-mountain low-herb alpine, high-mountain mid-herb subalpine, mid-mountain high-herb, steppes, halophytic, floodplain (swamp, typical); swamp grass; steppes – wormwood-grasses (deserts), grasses (true), rich forb-grass (meadow), high-mountain; deserts – halophytic semi-shrubs, psammophytic shrubs. Phytocenotic characteristics of species diversity for each type of vegetation and its association with high-altitude zones are given. Key words: Zhetysu Alatau mountains, vegetation classification, ecological physiognomic approach, plant communities, phytocoenotic characteristics.