Part 6
Not every plant found in the forest can be attributed to one tier or another. There are plants that do not belong to any forest "floor". As an example, we can mention the young trees that appeared under the canopy of the forest in a natural way. At first, future trees are very small and are located among herbs and shrubs. They then rise to undergrowth level. Large teenagers can rise even higher and find themselves above the shrubs. In short, young trees move from one tier to another as they grow. They do not form their own, separate tiers.
Adolescence is an important part of the forest vegetation community. Young trees can replace old mother trees under certain conditions, and they provide forest regeneration. In short, adolescence is the future of the forest. But at the same time, it is also an indicator of the well-being of the forest and its normal state. If there is a teenager under the canopy of trees, it means that the forest can maintain its existence, it is quite viable. The presence of youngsters indicates that adult trees form seeds in sufficient quantity, these seeds germinate well, and the seedlings find favourable conditions for their further development.
In the forest, the teenagers are usually placed unevenly, in curtain walls. Most often such curtains are located in "windows". This is especially noticeable in the old spruce wood. When you go through such a forest, you do not meet many young people. But suddenly you come across whole thickets of young trees. Looking upstairs, you will notice that there is a large gap in the tree canopy. Teenagers are timed to the windows because there are favorable lighting conditions and a lot of light.
The most abundant teenager in those parts of the forest, where the tree tier is not thick (for example, is thinned by cuttings care). In such a forest is quite light, and therefore the teenager is usually located here not in curtain walls, but more or less evenly over the area.
In the forest it often happens that one type of tree dominates in the tree tier, and in the growth of another. Many of our pine trees are an example. There is no growth of pine under their canopy, and the undergrowth of pine trees is very abundant. In this case, the old trees are replaced by the young generation of not the same tree species, but a completely different one. In such a forest, significant changes can occur in the future: the old pine trees will die out sooner or later and a spruce forest will grow on the place of the pine forest. There will be a change of tree species.
The continuation should be...