Two centuries of forest succession, and 30 years of vegetation changes in permanent plots in an inland sand dune area, The Netherlands.

There are not many sites in densely populated temperate Europe where primary forest succession has a chance to run without direct human intervention for a long time and over a relatively large area. The extensive drift sand area of the Veluwe, central Netherlands, provided an opportunity to study succession in a formerly open and dynamic inland sand dune system combining chronosequence and permanent plot approaches. Different successional stages, aged up to 205 years since the first tree individuals established, were identified and vegetation studied using 1200 permanent plots established in 1... Mehr ...