Dynamic floristic changes of Swedish beech forest in relation to soil acidity and stand management
✍ Scribed by U. Falkengren-Grerup; G. Tyler
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Year
- 1991
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 896 KB
- Volume
- 95
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1385-0237
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✦ Synopsis
This study reports dynamic changes in the beech forest vegetation during one decade, using 95 permanent observation areas representing a wide variety of soils and management regimes. Current soil acidification, including decreasing pH and base cation pools, increasing solubility of toxic elements and increasing deposition of N, as well as recent changes in the beech forest management have created good conditions for the study. Most species of vascular plants increased their frequencies during the 1980's.
However, there were several notable exceptions, in particular Galium odoratum, Viola riviniana/ reichenbachiana, Polygonatum multiflorum, and Mercurialis perennis. These species, demanding a comparatively low soil acidity for survival, are distinctly disfavoured by the long-term soil changes in the forests, which seem to have approached or exceeded their limits of existence in many sites. With most other species, differences in management regimes between the beginning and the end of the observation period were more important to the frequency changes. Sensitive to heavy thinning of the stands were, e.g. Oxalis acetosella, Lamium galeobdolon and Melica uniflora, favoured by thinning were Stellaria nemorum, Carex pilulifera, Milium effusum and an appreciable number of more ephemeral species normally occurring in clear-cut areas or otherwise open land, e.g., Rubus idaeus, Galeopsis tetrahit, Athyrium filix-femina, Juncus effusus, Agrostis capillaris, Veronica officinalis, Urtica dioica, and Moehringia trinervia.
Saplings of woody plants usually also became more frequent during the 1980's.