Heathlands of Temperate and Boreal Europe

Scrub communities dominated by heathers are called heathlands and are frequent in western and central Europe and in the subalpine belts of the mountains. They are diversified into seven subtypes along a wide geographic span along the entire Atlantic countries of Europe, from the Cape North to the Strait of Gibraltar as well as the Azorean islands, and penetrate in some areas of central Europe. They always grow on siliceous soils poor in bases and require high moisture during the growing season. The organic matter produced by heathlands is acidic and favors the podsolization of the soils. Most of them are linked to the human activity based on traditional land use: extensive grazing, harvesting and fire, which supported an agrarian economy based in livestock: sheep, goats, cattle. They started expanding from the Neolithic on at the expense of the forests that existed before. With the current rural abandonment, heathlands are severely diminishing and being replaced by newly growing forests or other human induced vegetation types such as grasslands, tree plantations or fields.