EN
Along a 4.8 km long stretch of the ecological corridor of the lêza river, 175 patches dominated by Helianthus tuberosus s.l. were found. Among them, about two-thirds are not bigger than 4 m2, but many of the other patches cover areas of several hundred square meters to about 1300 m2. The effect of the H. tuberosus stands on the vegetation of anthropogenic habitats was studied at two sites: one post-agricultural and one post-industrial. At both sites, a system of transects with study plots was laid out. The transects began outside of the H. tuberosus stands (stage A) and penetrated their inside comprising three distinguished stages (B to D) of increasingly higher and denser thickets of sunflower. No significant differences between habitats were found. At both sites, there was a strong decrease in the number and biomass of co-occurring species only in the older stages (C and D) of thicket development, but not at the edges (B), where short H. tuberosus individuals strongly compete with other species.