Part 5
This is the lowest tier of the forest vegetation community. The mosses and lichens are short plants and barely rise above the soil surface. Moss cover is often found in the forest. It is well developed in many types of coniferous forest, common in our pine and spruce forests. This green carpet often spreads over a large area, completely covering the soil.
Mosses in the forest develop in conditions of especially strong shade. They are shaded not only by trees, but also by other forest plants. However, the small inhabitants of the forest are well adapted to these peculiar conditions. They are shady and tolerate extremely poor lighting conditions. In some parts of the spruce woodland, due to lack of light, no plants other than mosses develop at all. And the mosses form a continuous cover here. However, the shadowiness of these small forest dwellers is not infinite. Where mosses disappear under the spruce canopy in particular, only a layer of dry fallen needles - the bedding - remains on the ground. Such a picture can be seen, for example, in very dense sprucewoods of young age.
Mosses also tolerate falling asleep with dry needles from trees. Pine needles do not have an adverse effect on them. However, the falling leaves have an oppressive effect on the mosses. Mosses usually die when they fall asleep. It is not difficult to notice this in the forest. Imagine walking along a thick old spruce wood with a solid moss carpet under your feet. But suddenly you have a large group of birches on your way. The moss cover on the ground immediately disappears.
After all this it is clear why in some types of forests mosses are formed on the soil of a continuous cover, and in others are very rare. The point here is, first of all, the nature of the fall in the forest, what falls to the ground - dry needles or leaves. In coniferous forests, mosses are usually very lush. In deciduous forests, they usually do not form a solid cover and are scattered. Especially few mosses are found in oak forests. They are occasionally found here with small spots and in special conditions - only on piles of earth thrown out by a mole. And the mosses themselves are special - not those that form a cover in the coniferous forest.
Moss carpet plays a significant role in the life of the forest, especially when it covers the soil completely. In this case, the mosses, which grow in large masses, prevent the germination of falling small seeds of trees - pine, spruce and some others. Seeds seem to hang among the stems of mosses, do not have the ability to germinate normally. Where the mossy cover is solid, tree seedlings do not appear much, there are very few of them here.
But the role of mosses is not limited to this. Powerful and dense cover of some mosses absorbs a lot of moisture. It absorbs water like a sponge and causes overwetting of the soil. And this leads to a sharp impoverishment of the soil with oxygen and creates unfavorable conditions for the development of the roots of trees and other forest plants.
The composition of the moss cover includes many types of mosses. The set of mosses varies in different parts of the forest. This depends on the differences in soil conditions. Where the soil is wetter, some mosses develop, while others are drier. Mosses are also sensitive to soil richness. Some of them grow only on richer soils, others are satisfied with poorer soils. The species composition of mosses in a particular part of the forest allows us to judge about the properties of the soil. Mosses are as indicative in this respect as other forest dwellers - trees, shrubs, shrubs, shrubs, herbs. Each forest plant has its own environmental requirements and can be an indicator of soil and other conditions.
Lichen cover develops in the forest rather seldom and only where the forest grows on very dry and poor sandy soil. A solid cover of white bushy lichens can be seen, for example, in pine forests growing on sandy sediments. This type of forest has been given a special name "boron-white moss". When you walk through such a forest in dry weather, small lichen bushes crunch under your feet - they are very fragile and break easily.
The continuation should be...