Subtitle:

Zaburzenia w ekosystemach leśnych ; Large-scale natural disturbances in forest ecosystems: their distribution, character and role in forest dynamics

Contributor:

Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Ekologii

Publisher:

Oficyna Wydawnicza Instytut Ekologii PAN

Place of publishing:

Dziekanów Leśny

Description:

Pages 3-19 ; 24 cm ; Bibliographical references (pages 15-18) ; Abstract in English

Type of object:

Journal/Article

Abstract:

Disturbance is any relatively discrete event in time that disrupts ecosystem, community, or population structure and changes resource or substrate availability or the physical environmenL Natural disturbances span a wide rangę of spatial scales; in this paper only the role of large-scale natural disturbances (of size larger than 1 ha) is considered. For a long time forest ecosystems had been roughly divided into two large groups; the one where natural disturbances are frequent, but smali (like canopy gaps of various sizes) and the one where natural disturbances are rare, but cover large areas and lead to almost complete elimination of the tree layer (like large fires, hurricanes, landslides etc.). The forest ecosystems influenced by frequent smali disturbances were considered to be very close to a climax State: forest dynamics in the other group was considered a "catastrophic” one, with forest ecosystems regenerating slowly through consecutive stages of forest succession.However, it is important to notę that those ideas were developed many decades ago, when most of the forest ecosystem research was concentrated in forests of the temperate zonę, strongly influenced by human management. The spatial extent of those studies used to be very limited by the smali size of the remaining patches of relatively natural forests, and even the longest observation or measurement series were still relatively short when compared to the time-scale of forest dynamics.During the last few decades, the geography of forest research has changed substantially; morę research is now being conducted in tropical and subtropical forests of South America, Southeast Asia and Africa. Methods of forest investigations have changed, too; the widespread use of satellite image analysis contributes to the expanding of the spatial scalę of research, while the accumulation of results of paleoecological research leads to the extention of the temporal scalę of analyses. Ali that combined yielded new, interesting results, which largely challenged the asssumptions underlying the earlier concepts of forest dynamics.

Relation:

Wiadomości Ekologiczne

Volume:

46

Issue:

1

Start page:

3

End page:

19

Detailed Resource Type:

Article

Resource Identifier:

oai:rcin.org.pl:219586 ; 0013-2969

Source:

MiIZ PAN, call no. P.3259 ; click here to follow the link

Language:

pol

Language of abstract:

eng

Rights:

Creative Commons Attribution BY 3.0 PL license

Terms of use:

Copyright-protected material. [CC BY 3.0 PL] May be used within the scope specified in Creative Commons Attribution BY 3.0 PL license, full text available at: ; -

Digitizing institution:

Museum and Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Original in:

Library of the Museum and Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Projects co-financed by:

Operational Program Digital Poland, 2014-2020, Measure 2.3: Digital accessibility and usefulness of public sector information; funds from the European Regional Development Fund and national co-financing from the state budget.

Access:

Open