Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic-EU.
Institute of Botany CAS, Třeboň, Czech Republic-EU.
PLoS One. 2021 Apr 29;16(4):e0250003. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250003. eCollection 2021.
There are not many sites in densely populated temperate Europe where primary forest succession has a chance to run without direct human intervention for a long time and over a relatively large area. The extensive drift sand area of the Veluwe, central Netherlands, provided an opportunity to study succession in a formerly open and dynamic inland sand dune system combining chronosequence and permanent plot approaches. Different successional stages, aged up to 205 years since the first tree individuals established, were identified and vegetation studied using 1200 permanent plots established in 1988 in three adjacent sand dune complexes of different successional age, and resampled during the past three decades. After two centuries, forest succession has proceeded to a pine forest with gradually increasing participation of native deciduous trees. However, their expansion has been arrested by browsing of wild ungulates. Species diversity peaked after about 40 years of forest succession, then declined, and increased again after 100 years. During the past three decades, the herb layer has differentiated in the oldest plots, and the spontaneous forest succession is still in progress. Besides open drift sand with early successional stages, also the spontaneously established late successional forests are valuable from the conservation point of view.
在人口密集的温带欧洲，没有多少地方可以让原始森林演替在没有人类直接干预的情况下长时间、在相对较大的区域内进行。荷兰中部的 Veluwe 广阔的漂流沙区提供了一个机会，可以通过结合定年序列和永久样地方法来研究以前开放和动态的内陆沙丘系统中的演替。在三个不同演替年龄的相邻沙丘复合体中，于 1988 年设立了 1200 个永久样地，并在过去三十年中进行了重新采样，确定了不同演替阶段，这些阶段的年龄自第一批树木个体建立以来长达 205 年。经过两个世纪，森林演替已进展到松林阶段，本地落叶树的参与度逐渐增加。然而，它们的扩张被野生动物的啃食所阻止。物种多样性在森林演替约 40 年后达到峰值，然后下降，100 年后再次增加。在过去的三十年中，最古老的样地中草本层已经出现分化，自然演替仍在进行。除了早期演替阶段的开阔漂流沙外，从保护的角度来看，自然建立的晚期演替森林也很有价值。
