Abstract
The research was conducted on four patches of thermophilous oak wood in Białowieża Primeval Forest: A – with a woodstand: oak + approx. 30-year-old hornbeam + hornbeam brushwood; B – with a hornbeam stand formed by natural seed fall after logging (ca. 1920) oaks; C – after logging oaks and replanted (ca. 1965) with pine and oak; D – with a natural low-density oak stand. Species composition and seed bank density were estimated using the seedling emergence method. Seedling emergence was observed over two vegetation seasons. Research demonstrated that: 1) the species abundance of the seed banks depends on canopy cover (A, B approx. 50 species; C, D approx. 70 species); 2) the floristical similarity (Sørensen's index) of the seed bank and ground vegetation is higher in the undisturbed patch D (0.50) than in disturbed patches (0.30-0.35); 3) species diversity in plots A, B, C, D (H'=12.5; 13.4; 15.5; 16.9) and seed bank density per m<sup>2</sup> (432.5; 958.0; 1486.5; 2268.0) are negatively correlated with the degree of patch shading; 4) the average weight of diaspores in the seed banks of shady plots is lower (A, B approx. 0.003 g) than that of sunny plots (C, D approx. 0.08 g); 5) the share of long-lived diaspores increases in patches after logging.
Highlights
The Potentillo albae-Quercetum community is the only thermophilous forest in Białowieża Primeval Forest
Which allowed for the penetration of large amounts of light to the ground vegetation (Fig. 1)
Białowieża Primeval Forest, which has been uninterruptedly covered by deciduous forest for thousands of years, is for this reason the only model of natural temperate deciduous forest (Boussuyt and Hermy 2001; Fenner and Thompson 2005; Boussuyt and Honmay 2008)
Summary
The Potentillo albae-Quercetum community is the only thermophilous forest in Białowieża Primeval Forest. In the Polish part of Białowieża Primeval Forest Potentillo albae-Quercetum communities have been found only on the plateau and the southern slopes of moraine and kame hills, and they are surrounded by shady hornbeam forest Tilio-Carpinetum (Kwiatkowska 1986). In the same period a number of thermophilous oak wood patches were destroyed by the logging of woodstands which were precious for economic reasons (Faliński 1986). Over the past forty years the preserved patches have rapidly declined. This process has resulted directly from the invasion of hornbeam into habitats of thermophilous oak wood (Kwiatkowska and Wyszomirski 1988, 1990; Kwiatkowska et al 1997). Growing hornbeam brushwood causes the gradual transformation of a thermophilous oak forest patch towards the sur-
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