primeval forest Slow-growing forest - also called primary forest , primary forest or virgin forest - is a forest that has reached a great age and has lived a great age without significant change or disturbance. It presents unique ecological features and can be classified as a peak in terms of plant diversity. The presence of diverse trees and plants, and multiple wildlife, increases the biodiversity of the forest ecosystem. These forests also include a diversity in the structure of trees and the presence of multi-layered tree canopies interspersed with holes of different sizes, as well as varieties of trees in their shapes and layers, in addition to the sizes of woody debris left behind.
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Primeval forests are valuable and important, both for economic reasons and for the ecosystem services they provide. It can be a point of contention when some practice logging to cut down forests for valuable timber, while ecologists seek to conserve forests for multiple benefits, including biodiversity conservation, water regulation, and nutrient cycling .
features
Primeval forests tend to have large trees and dead standing trees, and include layered tree canopies with gaps caused by the death of individual trees, with woody debris on the forest floor.
Forests that are regenerated after severe disturbance, such as wildfire, insect infestation, or crop harvesting, are often called secondary or new-age forests ("regeneration") because sufficient time has passed and the effects of the disturbance are not evident and gradually disappear. Depending on the study of the forests, this transformation could take from a century to several thousand years. Hardwood forests in the eastern United States can develop primeval forest characteristics in 150 to 500 years. In British Columbia, Canada, primeval forest is defined as 120 to 140 years old in the interior of the province where fire is a frequent and normal occurrence. But in coastal rainforests in British Columbia, these are defined as trees over 250 years old, with some trees reaching more than 1,000 years old. In Australia, eucalyptus trees rarely exceed 350 years of age due to frequent disturbances of fire.
Biodiversity
Primeval forests are often biologically diverse, and home to many rare and endangered species of flora and fauna, such as the northern spotted owl, marbled marlet and marten, which makes them ecologically of great importance. Biodiversity levels may be higher or lower in primary forests compared to secondary ones, depending on specific conditions, environmental variables, and geographic variables. Logging of primeval forests is a controversial problem in many parts of the world. Excessive logging reduces the biodiversity of these forests, affecting not only the primeval forests themselves, but also the native species of organisms that depend on the primeval habitats.
Mixed age
The old forest is characterized by a mixture of ages of the tree group, due to the distinct regeneration pattern of these forests. Trees regenerate at different times from one another, and because each one has a different spatial location and a different ratio of tree canopies, each one receives a different amount of sunlight. The mixed age of a forest is an important criterion for ensuring that a forest is a stable ecosystem in the long term. Plants alternate for new cycles from old forests. Thus, uniform age positions are less stable ecosystems.
Parachute openings
The gaps in the forest canopy are essential for the growth and maintenance of stunted trees and all mixed-age trees. In addition to some herbaceous plants that are formed only in the openings of the canopy. Openings are a result of tree death due to small disturbances from shocks such as wind, low-intensity fires, and tree diseases.
Terrain
The terrain characteristic of many primeval forests consists of pits and hills. Hills are caused by decaying fallen trees, and pits (tree throws) caused by roots pulled out of the ground when trees fall due to natural and climatic conditions, including driving animals out of their habitats. Moisture and fallen leaves often create a layer capable of nurturing certain species. of organisms. The hills provide a place, free from overgrowth and leaf saturation, where other species thrive.
Standing dead trees
A standing dead tree provides sources of food and habitat for many species of organisms. In particular, many species of animals must have a collection of wood, such as woodpeckers dead tree available for feeding and housing. In North America, the spotted owl is known to always need a dead tree to settle its habitat
earth layer deterioration
Fallen timber, or woody debris, contributes directly to carbon-rich soil organic matter, and provides the substrate for algae, fungi, seedlings, and micro-organisms by creating topography in the forest floor. In some ecosystems, such as the temperate rainforests on the Pacific coast of North America, fallen wood may become ecotrophic, providing a substrate for sapling trees that aids in their growth and protection.
the soil
Healthy soil contains many forms of life that depend on it. Healthy soils generally have well-defined horizons. Various organisms may need well-defined soil horizons to live, while many trees need well-structured, disturbance-free soils to thrive. Some of the herbaceous plants in northern hardwood forests must have warm, thick layers (which form part of the soil profile). Fungal ecosystems are essential for efficient recycling of site nutrients to the entire ecosystem.
Importance
Old forests often contain rich communities of flora and fauna within the habitats due to the forests' long period of settlement. These diverse and sometimes rare species may depend on the unique environmental conditions created by these forests.
- Old forests serve as a reservoir for species that cannot thrive or regenerate easily in mature forests, so they can be used as a baseline for research.
- Plant species native to ancient forests may one day prove invaluable in the treatment of various human ailments, as has been recognized in many plants in tropical rainforests.
- Old forests store large amounts of carbon both above and below ground (either in the form of humus or in moist soils such as peat). Together they represent a very important store of carbon. Destroying these forests releases this carbon as a greenhouse gas and may increase the risk of global climate change. Although old-growth forests act as a global sink of carbon dioxide, they are not protected by international treaties, because it is generally believed that old-growth forests stop collecting carbon. However, in forests between 15 and 800 years old, net ecosystem productivity (the net carbon balance in the forest including soil) is positive; Where carbon accumulates in ancient forests for centuries and contains large amounts of it.
ecosystem services
Ancient forests provide ecosystem services that may be more important to society than their use as a source of raw materials. These services include porous air making, pure water making, carbon storage, nutrient replenishment, soil maintenance, control of pests by bats and insectivorous insects, micro and macro climate control, and storage of a variety of genes.
climatic effects
Old-growth forests are often seen as being in equilibrium or in a state of decay, however, evidence from analysis of carbon stored above ground and in the soil has shown that old forests are more productive at storing carbon than younger forests. Forest harvesting has an effect Little or no influence on the amount of carbon stored in the soil, but research indicates that ancient forests, which contain trees of many ages and layers, have the highest potential for carbon storage.
Each forest has different carbon storage potential. For example, this potential is particularly high in the Pacific Northwest where forests are relatively productive, trees live long, decomposition is relatively slow, and fires are rare. Differences between forests must therefore be taken into account when determining how they manage carbon storage
Old-growth forests can affect climate change, but climate change also affects old-growth forests. As the impact of global warming increases further, the ability of ancient forests to sequester carbon is affected. Climate change has shown to influence the death of some dominant tree species, as observed in Korean pine trees. Climate change has also shown to influence species composition when forests were cleared over 10 and 20 years, which could disrupt the overall productivity of a forest.
Logging in primeval forests
According to the World Resources Institute, as of January 2009, only 21% of the primeval forests that once existed on Earth were left half of Western Europe's estimated pre-medieval forests were removed, and 90% of the primeval forests that existed in the contiguous United States were removed in the century seventeenth,
In Australia , the Regional Forestry Agreement (RFA) has attempted to prevent the removal of designated "old-growth forests". This led to conflicts over what constituted "old growth". For example, in Western Australia, the timber industry has attempted to reduce the area of old-growth in the curry forests of the southern woodland region; This led to the creation of the Western Australian Forest Alliance, the split of the Liberal government in Western Australia and the election of a Gallup Labor government. The old-growth forests in this area have now been placed within national parks. There is also a small percentage of ancient forests in southwestern Australia, which are protected by federal laws from logging, which has not occurred there in over 20 years.
In British Columbia, Canada, old-growth forests must be preserved in every ecological unit of the province to meet biodiversity needs.
remaining space locations
In 2006, Greenpeace determined that the world's remaining forest landscapes are distributed between continents as follows:
- 35% in Latin America: The Amazon rainforest is mainly located in Brazil, which clears more forests annually than any other country in the world.
- 28% in North America, which harvests 10,000 km2 of ancient forests each year. Many of the fragmented forests of southern Canada and the United States lack adequate travel corridors for animals and functioning ecosystems for large mammals. Most of the remaining old growth forests in the contiguous United States and Alaska are on public land.
- 19% is in northern Asia, home to the largest boreal forest in the world
- 8% is in Africa, which has lost most of its intact forest landscapes in the past 30 years. The timber industry and local governments are responsible for the destruction of large swathes of intact forest landscapes and continue to be the single greatest threat to these areas.
- 7% in South Asia and the Pacific, where paradise forests are being destroyed faster than any other forest on Earth. Much of the large intact forest landscape has already been reduced, 72% in Indonesia, 60% in Papua New Guinea.
- Less than 3% in Europe, where more than 150 square kilometers of intact forest landscapes are cleared each year, and the last areas of forest landscape in area in European Russia are rapidly shrinking. In the UK, they are known as ancient woodlands.