Soil fauna in Slovene forests is numerous and extraordinarily rich in its number of species. Vital for this richness is the high primary production in structurally and functionally preserved ...deciduous and mixed forests of the temperate climates. Heterogeneity of communities of the individual animal groups is considerable because of the continuous adaptation of the species. Refuges of mesophilic species during the colder periods were namely in a close proximity of the present forests, with their important segments on the territory of today's Slovenia. In the Carinthian forests the important refuges existed also in the 19th century, when the forest was essentially smaller than today. With a renewed overgrowth, a new forest environment is developing, which is only now being overtaken by the soil fauna. Here, the mutual connection between soil fauna and pedogenetic processes, dispersion of forest species from a sustained forest, and the meaning of different succession stages on the soil animal community can be observed, and the importance of the sustainable forest segments for the species diversity can be evaluated. Soil fauna affects soil structure, decomposition processes, and through nutrition relations also other forest animal species as capercaillie, forest partridge, and others.
Biodiversity of the deciduous forest ecosystem Krystufek, B. (Slovenian Museum of Natural History, Ljubljana (Slovenia))
Gozdarski vestnik (Slovenia),
(2001), Volume:
59, Issue:
7-8
Journal Article
Deciduous forest is a vertically structured ecosystem with a high primary production. A majority of the plant matter, however, is deposited as wood and accessible only to a limited number of animals. ...The amount of energy available from fruits and seeds is small (approximately 600 to 3,000 kcal ha-1 year-1), which might be a reason for a fairly low species diversity in a deciduous forest biome. A seasonal availability of resources seems to be even more restrictive, which is further aggravated by several years of fluctuations in seed production of the key tree species. This is why many "forest" animals have broader ecological niches than those that were realised in the climax forest; a great number of forest animals also prefer early succession stages. The edible dormouse (Glis glis) is one of the rare mammals with a pronounced adaptation to oscillations in the resource availability of deciduous forests: hibernation and synchronisation of reproduction with abundance of seed production. While managing the biodiversity of deciduous forests one should keep the successional dynamics and the patchy mosaic structure in mind. Namely, the species diversity is in decline after the system has achieved its climax.
