Large areas of Europe have been cultivated by humans for thousands of years. This has resulted in the complete disappearance of a lot of species. The auroch and the European wild horse, for instance, were eradicated in Poland in 1627 and 1880 respectively, while other species disappeared locally.
- The further away we travel from the urban and economic centre in northern Europe, the smaller the human impact. It is therefore not surprising that the auroch vanished 1200 years later from Poland than from Holland, says Tobias Edman of Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, SLU.
The Hapsburg Empire
In his doctoral thesis, Edman shows results from four areas in the Carpathians with practically unspoilt landscapes. During the latter part of the 19th century, all belonged to the Hapsburg Empire, but today these areas are situated in Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
The conclusions of Tobias Edman are that the Romanian landscape has been changing at a slow rate during the entire 20th century, while the other landscapes have begun to change, first slowly but then at an increasing rate between 1950 and 1980, in the same way as in most countries in Europe.
In the Romanian meadows there are a lot of trees and bushes in addition to a large number of vascular plants.
- This gives opportunities for species that are adapted to living in the forest to survive in the cultivated landscape also, says Tobias Edman.
Species and human impact
Researchers and forest managers in areas ranging from France to the Urals were asked to answer a questionnaire regarding the occurrence of large forest vertebrates, tree species composition and land use history. It was found that there is a clear association between the number of species groups, the number of species in each group, and the degree of human impact.
Tobias Edman also investigated the occurrence of the white-backed woodpecker in the Polish landscape. Two methods for predicting the occurrence of white-backed woodpeckers were tested. The one that worked best took into consideration the positions of forest areas relative to one another. The results demonstrate that it is important to consider not only the sizes of the available habitats in a landscape but also the relative positions of these habitats.