Grazing Ecology and Forest History

Challenges the view that the lowlands of Central and Western Europe would revert to their prehistoric state of closed forest systems if free from human intervention. This text uses examples from pollen analyses and studies on tree species, and tests hypothesis of herbivore governance of vegetation.

Klappentext

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.

Inhalt

The central problem; succession theories; pollen investigation; historical texts; research into spontaneous succession in forest reserves; ecology of tree species in climax vegetation in prehistoric times; synthesis of findings. (Part contents).