Friday 16 January 2015

The Structure of a Forest

The Structure of a Forest:

Forests are habitats in which the trees are the dominant form of vegetation. They occur in many regions and climates around the globe—the tropical rainforests of the Amazon basin, the temperate forests of eastern North America, and the boreal forests of northern Europe are just a few examples.

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The species composition of a forest is often unique to that forest, with some forests consisting of many hundreds of species of trees while others consist of just a handful of species. Forests are constantly changing and progress through a series of successional stages during which species composition changes within the forest.

Thus, making general statements about forest habitats can be difficult. Yet despite the variability of our planet's forests, there are some basic structural characteristics that many forests share—characteristics that can help us to better understand both forests and the animals and wildlife that inhabit them.
Mature forests often have several distinct vertical layers. These include:
These different layers provide a mosaic of habitats and enable animals and wildlife to settle into various pockets of habitat within the overall structure of a forest.
The forest floor is often blanketed with decaying leaves, twigs, fallen trees, animal scat, moss, and other detritus. The forest floor is where recycling occurs, fungi, insects, bacteria, and earthworms are among the many organisms that break down waste materials and ready them for reuse and recycling throughout the forest system.
The herb layer of the forest is dominated by herbaceous (or soft-stemmed) plants such as grasses, ferns, wildflowers, and other ground cover. Vegetation in the herb layer often gets little light and in forests with thick canopies, shade tolerant species are predominant in the herb layer.

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