Types of Formally Designated Forests: Ancient Woodland, Biodiversity of Wales, Community Forests in England, Conservation Reserve, Experimental Forest

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 30. Chapters: Ancient woodland, Biodiversity of Wales, Community forests in England, Conservation reserve, Experimental Forest, High-Biodiversity Wilderness Areas, High conservation value forest, Intact forest landscape, List of types of formally designated forests, National Forest (England), Nature reserve, Old-growth forest, Private Reserve of Natural Heritage, Protected forest, Reserve forest, Royal forest, Sacred grove, State forest, United States National Forest. Excerpt: An old-growth forest (also termed primary forest, virgin forest, primeval forest, late seral forest, or in Britain, ancient woodland) is a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological features and in some cases may be classified as a climax community. Old-growth features include diversity of tree-related structures that serve as diversified wildlife habitat that leads to higher bio-diversity of the forested ecosystem. Diversified tree structure includes multi-layered canopies and canopy gaps, high variance of tree heights and diameters, diversity of decaying classes and sizes of woody debris, and diversity of tree species. Tongass National Forest, AlaskaOld-growth forests tend to have more large trees and standing dead trees, multi-layered canopies with gaps resulting from the deaths of individual trees, and coarse woody debris on the forest floor. Forest regenerated after a severe disturbance, such as wildfire, insect infestations or harvesting, is often called second-growth or regeneration until enough time passes for the effects of the disturbance to be no longer evident. Depending on the forest, this may take anywhere from a century to several millennia. Hardwood forests of the eastern United States can develop old-growth characteristics in one or two generations of trees, or 150 500 years. In British Columbia, Canada, old growth is defined as 120 to 140 years of age in the interior of the province where fire is a frequent and natural occurrence. In British Columbia s coastal rainforests, old growth is defined as trees more than 250 years, with some trees reaching more than 1,000 years of age. In Australia, large eucalypt trees have been radio carbon dated at around 600 years old but the understory species can be much older at around 1000 years old. Forest types have very different development patterns, natural disturbances and appearances. A Douglas-fir stand may grow for centuries without disturbanc