This paper describes the plant communities of two oligotrophic karstic rivers with a slight anthropogenic influence — the Trebižat and the Lištica — in South Bosnia and Herzegovina, their sinecology, and the relationship between vegetation and plant species and environmental parameters. According to 87 relevés, a total of 26 plant associations, using Braun-Blanquet methods, were found in the rivers and nearby surveyed area. Only nine associations were common to both rivers. Eight associations were recorded for the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the first time. Associations from both rivers differed according to following parameters measured at the sampling site: water temperature, distance from the mouth (river kilometers), river width, water depth, flow, pH and slope. There were no differences in nutrient concentrations among the associations. According to Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA), three environmental variables out of the 11 initially considered were retained as being related to plant distribution. The first two axes explained 56.8% and 35.2% of variance of species-environment relationship in the Trebižat and Lištica rivers, respectively. Water depth in the Trebižat River, and pH and river kilometers in the Lištica River were found to be the most influential, while nutrients and other physico-chemical parameters were not significant in either river. Water depth vector was identified as an underlying environmental factor determining distribution of Potamogeton lucens and Myriophyllum verticillatum (Potamion), and Nymphaea alba (Nymphaeion albae). According to in situ measurements of light intensity, the highest coefficients of light attenuation, radiance and reflection were found at a station with dense populations of Potamogeton lucens and Nuphar luteum (Potametum lucentis). The vegetation and floristic value of the rivers is discussed as a basis for biodiversity conservation programmes and evaluating the state of these ecosystems in the future.

In order to analyze morphological characteristics of locally cultivated common bean landraces from Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), thirteen quantitative and qualitative traits of 40 P. vulgaris accessions, collected from four geographical regions (Northwest B&H, Northeast B&H, Central B&H and Sarajevo) and maintained at the Gene bank of the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences in Sarajevo, were examined. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the proportion of variance retained in the first two principal components was 54.35%. The first principal component had high contributing factor loadings from seed width, seed height and seed weight, whilst the second principal component had high contributing factor loadings from the analyzed traits seed per pod and pod length. PCA plot, based on the first two principal components, displayed a high level of variability among the analyzed material. The discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) created 3 discriminant functions (DF), whereby the first two discriminant functions accounted for 90.4% of the variance retained. Based on the retained DFs, DAPC provided group membership probabilities which showed that 70% of the accessions examined were correctly classified between the geographically defined groups. Based on the taxonomic distance, 40 common bean accessions analyzed in this study formed two major clusters, whereas two accessions Acc304 and Acc307 didn’t group in any of those. Acc360 and Acc362, as well as Acc324 and Acc371 displayed a high level of similarity and are probably the same landrace. The present diversity of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s common been landraces could be useful in future breeding programs.