Station 7: Forest Edge – Beisetal Information and Forest Nature Trail

Station 7 of the "Beisetal information and forest trail".
Forest edges are important:
They protect the cool, damp interior climate of the forest, slow down storms and offer plants and animals that can neither live in closed forests nor in fields and meadows a narrow - but long - habitat. Good forest edges are those that form a closed coat of low and half-height deciduous trees and leave space for shrubs and herbs.
Commercial tree species are not encouraged in the edge of the forest. On poor soils - like here in the Buntsandstein - oaks, cherries, hornbeams and bushes like the hazelnut form suitable forest coats. On nutrient-rich soils - as in basalt - the edges are richer in plants and animals.
Well-developed forest edges offer the plants and animals living there migration opportunities and the important gene exchange. After forest clearing for settlement, industry and traffic, this enables the development of the forest edge communities in the new edge.
Forest edges have only existed in our landscape for around 200 years. During the Middle Ages, the overexploitation of wood and the additional grazing of all forest areas prevented closed forest edges for 1000 years. Before that, the whole country was forested. The forest had an outer edge only to some bogs, rivers and
lakes
Source:
daten2.verwaltungsportal.de/files/pages generator/detailed_descriptions_to_den_stations.pdf