Grasslands of the Kampinos National Park, Poland

Abstract

Kampinos National Park borders the city of Warsaw, the capital of Poland with circa 1.8 million inhabitants. Two types of farming developed in parallel in the park's territory: extensive and smaller scale inside the forests on fens and poor sandy soils and larger parcels closer to the river, on richer alluvial soils. The diversity of meadows in Kampinos National Park is a result of the mosaic of habitat types, specific geomorphology and gradients of land use. In the central part, there is a fair area of aquatic and semi-aquatic vegetation types, sedge-beds, rich and poor fens and wet meadows. This low area is cut by two ranges of inland dunes, with pastures, heathlands and sandy xerothermic grasslands. Butterflies are indicators of the biodiversity quality of grasslands in the Kampinos National Park. Representatives of this group of Lepidoptera in Europe depend on nectar and larval food plants associated with early-successional habitats.Keywords: aquatic vegetation types; butterflies; Kampinos National Park; Poland; sandy xerothermic grasslands