Laelatu wooded meadow, Estonia.

Wooded meadows (also named wood-meadows, park meadows, etc.) are ecosystems in temperate forest regions. They are sparse natural stands with a regularly mowed herbaceous layer.

While frequent throughout Europe during the Medieval period and before, wooded meadows have largely disappeared. Wooded meadows originated with the practices of hunter-gatherer communities. They were important in terms of social organization around a natural resource and determined much of the community's interactions with the natural world.[1] In the early 20th century, wooded meadows were used for fruit cultivation in Sweden; however, their prevalence has decreased substantially due to changes in land management and a movement toward more intensive types of agroecosystems.[2] The more typical, calcicolous wooded meadows are common around the Baltic Sea.[3]

Wooded meadows have high species richness. In some of the current Estonian wooded meadows, world-record species densities have been recorded (up to 76 species of vascular plants per square meter).[4]

Literature

  • Kull, Kalevi; Kukk, Toomas; Lotman, Aleksei 2003. When culture supports biodiversity: The case of wooded meadow. In: Roepstorff, Andreas; Bubandt, Nils; Kull, Kalevi (eds.) 2003. Imagining Nature: Practices of Cosmology and Identity. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 76–96. (pdf)

References

  1. ↑ Kull, Kalevi. "Kull & Kukk & Lotman - When culture supports biodiversity: The case of wooded meadow". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. ↑ Gunnarsson, A. (2010). "Wooded Meadow Gardening in Southern Sweden during the Past Centuries". Acta Horticulturae. 881 (881): 967–972. doi:10.17660/ActaHortic.2010.881.161.
  3. ↑ Kull, Kalevi; Zobel, Martin (1991-10-01). "High species richness in an Estonian wooded meadow". Journal of Vegetation Science. 2 (5): 715–718. doi:10.2307/3236182. ISSN 1654-1103. JSTOR 3236182.
  4. ↑ Kukk, Toomas; Kull, Kalevi 1997. Wooded Meadows [Puisniidud]. - Estonia Maritima 2: 1–249.
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