Grazing ecology and forest history [electronic resource] Edited by F. W. M. Vera.
Material type:![Text](/opac-tmpl/lib/famfamfam/BK.png)
- text
- computer
- online resource
- 9781845933067
- land use
- natural grasslands
- scrub
- European Union Countries
- Europe
- trees
- reserved forests
- grazing
- palynology
- palaeoecology
- paleoecology
- Northern Europe
- Nordic Countries
- woody plants
- wilderness
- plant ecology
- Slovenia
- Southern Europe
- natural pastures
- eukaryotes
- Western Europe
- USA
- temperate forests
- agriculture
- Balkans
- history
- France
- herbivores
- shrubs
- Mediterranean Region
- plants
- Developed Countries
- plant succession
- Scandinavia
- landscape ecology
- forest ecology
- climax communities
- America
- North America
- parks
- APEC countries
- Central Europe
- Austria
- synecology
- stand establishment
- pollen analysis
- grasslands
- United States of America
- nature reserves
- Germany
- Sweden
- lowland areas
- light
- vegetation types
- forests
- OECD Countries
- botanical composition
- Poland
It is a widely held belief that a climax vegetation of closed forest systems covered the lowlands of Central and Western Europe before humans intervened in prehistoric times to develop agriculture. If this intervention had not taken place, it would still be there and so if left, the grassland vegetation and fields we see today would revert to its natural closed forest state, although with a reduced number of wild species. This book challenges this view, using examples from history, pollen analyses and studies on the ecology of tree and shrub species such as oak and hazel. It tests the hypotheses that the climax vegetation is a closed canopy forest against the alternative one in which species composition and succession of vegetation were governed by herbivores and that the Central and Western European lowlands were covered by a park-like landscape consisting of grasslands, scrub, solitary trees and groves bordered by a mantle and fringe vegetation. Comparative information from North America is also included, because the forests there are commonly regarded as being analogous to the primeval vegetation in Europe. This title is a revised, updated and expanded translation of book published in Dutch.
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