A lot of simultaneous questions.
My first impression of a forest is a community of flora and fauna which are able to survive by themselves, to regenerate, to enable self supply, to allow evolution.
Given that many so-called forests are maintained by managers, when does a park become a forest or a forest become a park?
What should be the minimum age/size of the trees or the surface covered?
A lot of simultaneous questions.
My first impression of a forest is a community of flora and fauna which are able to survive by themselves, to regenerate, to enable self supply, to allow evolution.
It is not my own definition, but from an anthropological point of view, a forest is a living system that thinks and behaves, just like any other living system.
Let's take a look at this wonderful book: E. Kohn, (2013). How Forests Think. Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human, University of California Press
But what makes a forest a forest and not another ecosystem/community of living beings? Perhaps the answer is too obvious?
Dear Marcel,
A forest is opposed to a jungle. A jungle is a naturally grown wood and untouched by man. A forest is influenced by man-made forest. A forest is more to be equated with a plantation and is mainly the economic benefits.
Best regards,
Guenter
Dear Günther,
I am not sure. The german expression for man made forest is "Forst". Forest is of natural origin.
Dear Hanno,
No, I do not think so, the german "Forst" stands for forest, in German we have "Forst", "Wald" und "Urwald" a clear distinction!
Jungle = Dschungel = completely natural, untouched by man
Wood = Wald = a hybrid of jungle and forest
Forest = Forst - fully under control and human management.
Best regards,
Guenter
Dear Marcel,
I mean, the word "definition" is much too sharp chosen for the name of 'forest' or 'wood'.
For a landscape like the Siberian forests you just can not give a distinct definition.
Of course every child is thinking at the word jungle of a tropical forests.
But, I think that the word 'jungle' can also be applied for Siberian wood and landscape.
Best regards,
Guenter
I was thinking to comment on that..., but it was something so similar to what was just very well said by Guenter Grundmann ..., that I feel I couldn´t add too much... Yes a "definition" is a very restricted term to be applied in this case... :-)
A forest does not need management. It is self managing. If a forest is defined as a composition of plants and animals at a given time, if will require management to preserve the definition. Climate has 11 and 50 year cycles. Attempting to maintain a forest with natural climatic cycles as it was at a given time is counter natural. A forest does not have a single definition, but a general definition.
Is the Black Forest still a forest? When did it stop being a forest?
I grew up in a forested area (common, local definition of forested area). It now has several major roadways, housing developments, and a university. It still has nearly impenetrable areas with bears, alligators, foxes, wildcats, hawks, eagles, and turkeys. Is it a forest, partial forest, or developed area with dense, wooded areas?
Forests occupy one third of the Earth's land area and are found on all corners of the globe. While there are a few different types of forests, all forests have trees as the dominant plant type.
Forests are divided into three different layers: the forest floor, the understory and the canopy. The forest floor is comprised of soil, dead plants and animals and small plants such as grasses and wildflowers. The understory contains small trees or bushes and is also called the shrub layer. The canopy is made up of the leaves and branches of the trees that dominate the forest.
It s interesting that you assume that the roots of the forest can be ignored when the structure of the forest is defined?
Dear Marcel, please allow me a brief description as follows.
I love going to European forests -sya in France, Belgium of Germany, where nearly all trees are (Euclide's like) aligned. For us Latin Americans, thats is a funny joke mixed with tragedy. Over here our trees in the forests are never aligned. They are, as it should be, a chaotics mes, a dance of hide-and-seek, a puzzle and mistery.
Perhaps in the Latin American forests there are lines at other scales of analysis, and therefore there is not a chaotic mes at at least one scale of analysis? The shortest distance between two trees is a line, right?
Certainly i what we all understand as wild forests, there are no ligns whatsoever. Just a Mandelbrot said: a mountain is not a cone, etc., well, a forest is not a set of aligned trees.
Each tree could be in the center of a 'star shape' when each tree would be connected with the neighbouring trees via imaginary lines. A mental forest might become a cluster of imaginary stars, and of course the positions and shapes of these imaginary stars and the size of the cluster will differ between forests more or less managed by humans.
See the 'point charge' figure as indicated below
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/equipot.html
A forest expressed as a cluster of 'point charge' figures varying in shape and size.
Another (geometry-based) way to define a forest?
Dear Marcel,
Your answer inspired me straight to the following:
I would like to broaden my views on the definition of a forest:
A forest is a part of us, and we are part of the forest:
we breathe the precious oxygen that produces the forest,
the forest breathe our carbon dioxide that we exhale.
Best,
Guenter
An ignoramus can ignore, a theory can not do that!
We are indeed in every second with every particle and every living creature in the immediate interaction. That's the big secret. No one can ignore that!
Even the roots of the forest can not be ignored!
But roots are not accessible from a visual, and thus scientific, point of view? If you start to dig, you change the forest you wish to study...
Perhaps scanners might help?
Forests and their definitions are scientifically based on the perception of reflectance patterns bouncing back aspects of light from the trees and tree environments towards the eyes of the observers (e.g. scientists, citizens). Why should forests perceived as images in Dreams differ from forests perceived as images via the eyes given that the brain will always manipulate the visual aspects consciously perceived, and therefore the definition of what a forest should be?
Flower carpets in forests
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=flower+carpets+in+forest&qpvt=flower+carpets+in+forest&qpvt=flower+carpets+in+forest&FORM=IGRE
From another point of view, the world of the adults is much more urban, whereas the world of children is (still) populated with forests and jungles. Whether from books, movies or stories. In their imagination, many children are closer to forests than adults.
Although people call "forests" an accumulation of trees (like the Black Forest), tundra that covers large areas of North America is also a forest of sorts, because it is dominated by plants. There is just not enough sunlight for them to grow big.
A reccomendation: RObert Pogue Harrison's "Forests: The Shadow of Civilization" is a fantastic cultura history of the forest
Following links show the differences between woods, forests and jungles:
http://www.ehow.com/info_8377449_differences-woods-forests-jungles.html
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Forest_vs_Jungle
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-jungle-and-forest
From the links above, forest is a large area covered with trees, grasses, shrubs and underbrush grow thickly.
Also from the links above, key differences of each:
Wood:
Forest:
Jungle:
In IT context i.e. directory services e.g. Microsoft Active Directory, "forest" has different interpretation as extracted from the following link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Directory
A domain is defined as a logical group of network objects (computers, users, devices) that share the same Active Directory database.
A tree is a collection of one or more domains and domain trees in a contiguous namespace, linked in a transitive trust hierarchy.
At the top of the structure is the forest. A forest is a collection of trees that share a common global catalog, directory schema, logical structure, and directory configuration. The forest represents the security boundary within which users, computers, groups, and other objects are accessible.
Dear Marcel,
I know you know it better. Not the height alone, the "deepness" of a forest is the characteristic. The soil, the visible part, the microbes, insects etc. And the invisible smell, the color etc. I attend some recent photos of mine taken in Tasmania this november.
Dear Marcel,
A forest is a relatively stable ecosystem consisting of plants –mainly trees and shrubs – , animals, mushrooms and microorganisms. The forest or wood played an important role in Europe mainly in Western Europe and was a determining vegetation and so the everyday part of life as well as mythical and cultural aspects.
As a pregnant example may be Dante’s Divine Comedy
"When half way through the journey of our life
I found that I was in a gloomy wood,
because the path which led aright was lost.
And ah, how hard it is to say just what
this wild and rough and stubborn woodland was,
the very thought of which renews my fear!
So bitter ’t is, that death is little worse;
but of the good to treat which there I found,
I ’ll speak of what I else discovered there."
Also the werewolf legends belong to this forest inspired cultural heritage.
Dear Marcel,
from a forester’s point of view, a forest is: 1234 certain trees, 56789 certain bushes/shrubs and so on (a realistic point of view, and the numbers of trees or shrubs are variable, depending on a certain forest and accuracy of a certain forester :-) ).
From a lexicographer’s – nominalistic – point of view, a polysemantic lexeme forest, being neither concrete nor abstract (in different contexts), has the common direct/figurative and direct terminological meanings (our dear Colleagues described these meanings here), so it is a difficult object for only one definition, especially in bilingual dictionaries (on a reason of its national specifics of direct and figurative interpretation: for ex., the denotations of "a Russian forest" and "a Taiwanese forest" differ, so the metaphors differ, too).
From a folklorist’s – nominalistic – point of view, a forest is a well-known locus for magician forces or evil entities, that/who are sensitive (sometimes) and help the main heroes, however. In religious folklore it is also a place for the powerful but modest saint hermits.
A forest is a large area of land covered with trees or other woody vegetation. Hundreds of more precise definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing and ecological function. According to the widely-used. United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization definition, forests covered an area of four billion hectares (15 million square miles) or approximately 30 percent of the world's land area in 2006.
Forests are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are distributed across the globe. Forests account for 75% of the gross primary productivity of the Earth's biosphere, and contain 80% of the Earth's plant biomass.
Forests at different latitudes form distinctly different ecozones: boreal forests near the poles tend to consist of evergreens, while tropical forests near the equator tend to be distinct from the temperate forests at mid-latitude. The amount of precipitation and the elevation of the forest also affects forest composition.
Human society and forests influence each other in both positive and negative ways. Forests provide ecosystem services to humans and serve as tourist attractions. Forests can also impose costs, affect people's health, and interfere with tourist enjoyment. Human activities, including harvesting forest resources, can negatively affect forest ecosystems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest
The most difficult questions are:
1) the description of the "forest" concept volume: f.ex., is a mangrove space "forest" indeed or not (=it is only a language habit to name it as "forest")?
2) the description of the "border space": what is it - an edge of a forest? Where do a field space finish and a forest "begin"? Does a single tree make a field or a forest? - Field, I think. - And 11 trees? 12? 122? When a field turns into an edge of a forest and the edge - into an ordinary forest in common sense (in a certain language culture)?
And if you stay in front of a forest, you don't consider it to be a forest? What do you see at these 4 Shishkins' canvases?
@Olga,
It´s very clear, the first three pictures are typical agricultural areas with some single trees, the last one containing a small cottage is a mixture of agriculture and a fragment or remnant of a forest .
A forest is land where all variety of trees and grass grow and it is also home for variety of wild animals
Does grass grow under pine forests given that physical or chemical aspects of needles and/or lack of light because of pine canopy hamper herb/grass development?
How can a general definition of forest be provided when not all forest environments have been explored?
Dear Marcel, you might be right. Wonderful how fantasy starts. The painter has done good work.
The Shishkins' fields are almost always in the frames of different types (?) of forests (we can see the first rows of trees at every canvas), the last canvas (4) was his "Edge of the wood". The border between forest and "non-forest" is very important, reflecting in the vocabulary (the quantity of trees, their species and so on) and symbolizing in folklore. In addition to lexemes лес 'forest' and опушка 'edge of the forest', there are перелесок (1), лесок (2), роща (3), рощица (4), бор (5), тайга (6), сосняк (7), осинник (8), ельник (9), березняк (10), and many others, especially in dialects :-).
"a 'forest patch' shape of 20 meters wide and 1000 kilometers long" = лесополоса in Russian (smth like "forest-belt"?), and it includes a component "forest";
"trees planted next to highways" are similar to alley, we have a word combination, its lit. translation is "protecting=defending (?) forest belt";
"Can a forest be defined as a landscape component aimed to hide another landscape component?" - maybe, not to hide, but to protect (from snow, wind, storms and so on).
Dear Marcel, I think these (a forest belt to mask something for aesthetic reasons, to indicate the position of a river, to reduce a noise, to protect the roads and so on) are the groups of artificial protective forest plantations in the form of "belts", "strips", "clumps" and others. This is the information from our encyclopedia (in short Yandex and my translation :-)) So they protect the natural, agricultural, industrial, communal, transport and other objects from the effects of natural and/or anthropogenic factors. Protective forest plantations depend on the destination, executable functions; their types are: 1) agroforestry - plantations, located on agricultural lands, ensuring their protection against deflation and soil erosion, dusty storms, droughts, solar radiation, etc. unsuccessful climatic factors that enhance the effectiveness of these lands; 2) agroforestry for livestock - postbestowal forest belts, tree "umbrellas" for safety plantings, pasture improvement. They also protect animals from wind, snow storms, dust storms, and other bad weather events, they raise the efficiency of pastes, etc.; 3) river, lake and other water "bodies" bank protective planting - they prevent erosion of banks, destruction of rivers, water pollution and siltation of reservoirs, excessive evaporation of moisture from water surfaces, as well as regulating the hydrological regime of water bodies and preserving their richness; 4) landslide protective plantations - they prevent the mountain slopes, erosion, landslides, debris flows, and so on. If you use https://translate.yandex.ru/ (English, French or other), you may insert this text http://www.woodyman.ru/publ/198-1-0-3375 from on-line Forest encyclopaedia and understand better. Yandex almost has no text limits for translation.
No dear Marcel,
most forests are not belt, the are just the remnants of former great beeings.
"Aesthetic" and "Indication" are the special functions, you are right, Marcel, they are not pure protective.
The question 'What is forest' has the answer.
'Forest' is 'for rest'
Probable said due to the therapeutic value of the forest over the people due to its cleaner air, sweeping breeze, the flowing and flapping flora, the shrieks of the naughty monkeys, the rustle of the sliding snake and last but not the least the shinning ray of the sun trickling through the canopy of the vegetation and falling on the carpet of fallen leaves on the floor of the forest.
It is a privilege to go to the forest for rest.
Forest is a generic term to classify an area covered by trees. Maybe the answer is not all in the question?
Some people might ask: what is the exact definition of a tree?
And, indeed, forests or trees could be defined as resting or meditation places, but this might also be the case for other environments (e.g. gardens, parks,...)?
This is a good question.
The discussion so far in this thread is very interesting and from an amazing number of different perspectives.
From a set theory perspective, a forest containing one tree with no trees in its neighbourood is a singleton set. So it is possible to speak in terms of singleton forests. Some homes have a single tree nearby and that tree is the only one in the neighbourhood. So some home-owners might be pleased to know that they have a singleton forest nearby.
Apart from the set theory perspective, @Harshvardhan Singh has given a precise definition of a forest in terms of trees in a region.
Similarly, @Olga Laguta has also given a precise definition of a forest patch.
@Hanno Krieger has given a very good view of a forest from a self-sustaining and evolutionary perspective. And @Guenter Grundmann has given an amazing definition of a forest. Well done!
Forest can have dozens of interpretations, some even subjective like a resting place. There should be something more in the question to give a comprehensive answer?
A forest is a field where the chicken have feathers and are free, where the private owners cannot pursue you, where the noise is always made without a human interest, ....where the life arises without our control and objective: one can breath pure air, see old trees, discover colors, hear animals and test specials fruits
Thus, a forest can be defined from a 'functional' versus a 'structural/organisational' point of view?
What is the structure-based definition of a forest?
What is the function-based definition of a forest?
Forest can have dozens of interpretations depending on how 'structure/organization' or 'function' is defined?
If definitions of forests are based on perception, the number of definitions can be infinite?
Forests are some of the infinite biodiversities in the endless universe. Forests, as biodiversity spots, can indeed have dozens of interpretations depending on how each biodiversity place is defined by subjective perceptions.
If we say infinite which I agree is proper we may enter another issue re. Definition of infinite?
From a practical point of view I might define 'infinite' as 'uncountable', but of course there are several definitions of what 'infinite' might be.... E.g. 'uncountable' does not imply 'infinite' from a theoretical point of view?
Yes Marcel,
In language of Cantor is one aleph higher than the one of the natural numbers (aleph zero). For instance the rational numbers which are countable at difference of what happens with the irrational ones (aleph one) or the reals.
Dear Marcel,
The functions of forest (have) had enormous impacts on human life. Does forest have still this influence?
There are three broad categories of forest definitions in use: administrative, land use, and land cover. Administrative definitions are based primarily upon the legal designations of land, and commonly bear no relationship to the vegetation growing on the land: land that is legally designated as a forest is defined as a forest even if no trees are growing on it. Land Use definitions are based upon the primary purpose that the land serves. For example, a forest may defined as any land that is used primarily for production of timber. Under such a Land Use definition, cleared roads or infrastructure within an area used for forestry, or areas within the region that have been cleared by harvesting, disease or fire are still considered forests even if they contain no trees. Land Cover definitions define forests based upon the type and density of vegetation growing on the land. Such definitions typically define a forest as an area growing trees above some threshold. These thresholds are typically the number of trees per area (density), the area of ground under the tree canopy (canopy cover) or the section of land that is occupied by the cross-section of tree trunks (basal area). Under such Land Cover definitions, and area of land only be defined as forest if it is growing trees. Areas that fail to meet the Land Cover definition may be still included under while immature trees are establishing if they are expected to meet the definition at maturity.
I am under the impression that Marcel is not looking for infinite descriptions, but a most comprehensive and concise concept of forest in space and time to reach its definition. But I may well be wrong.
Please continue to express what you think!
Interesting is that on (old) geographic maps forests might be indicated on places where forests disappeared. Maps do not take temporal forest dynamics into account, but are used by administrations/researchers to define forest cover/land use?
Why forests should only involve trees at least 5m high given that the oldest conifer tree in the world somewhere in Scandinavia is less than 5m high? Practical reasons are used to define what a forest should be?
Thus, to what extent do theoretical and practical definitions differ in what a forest should be?
Forests, components of the infinite universe in perpetual evolution, are dynamic aggregations of arboreal, deciduous or evergreen vegetation, subject to environmental stochasticity.
Perhaps one of the fundamental interests of the forest is related with the equilibrium of the gases pollution production on the atmosphere. We consume tonnes of oxygen which is transformed in poison oxides for the lungs and nowadays the only form to recover them is by photosynthesis. In the future we shall appreciate this feature, more and more, if the demography of the Earth follows to increase at present rate.
Then, the forest is a source of fresh air and natural wild life out of our risky economical planning.
http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2010/05/06/how-do-human-brains-think-and-feel/comment-page-1/
Split-brain researcher Eran Zaidel speculates that for important computations, “one side will compute, while the other side will monitor or compute in another way. So, one way to describe the division of labor between the two sides is to say that one side is ‘top down’ and one side is ‘bottom up.’ When we perceive the forest, do we see the trees first and then those trees make up a forest? Or do we see the forest first, and then we see the trees? It turns out we do both.”
If you Watch and define a forest you will do this with a visual snapshot which does not allow you to take the characteriststics of the individual trees into account because focused observations of all the trees will take too much time?
If 100 people are in front of 100 trees placed on a line, and are asked to focus on a single tree for description, what is the probability that they all will choose the same tree for description? What are the underlying mechanisms of people differing in choices of the first tree to be described?
Does this imply that definitions of forests based on individual trees are observer-specific based on the underlying mechanisms of perception choices made in the brain/decided by the brain?
By sure,
the definition of "forest" cannot and must not depend on the observation of a single individually prefered tree. Forest is a community of beeings, plants, animals etc.independant from any observer especially of the observation of any individuum alone.
I confirm the given description of forest from the naturalistic aspect, eventually biodiversity area could be also inserted in the definition. It would be much more complex as a virtual entity because it becomes subject to individual interpretations.
Does it make sense to define terminology that cannot be measured in practice, e.g. forest is an entity of a large number of visible and invisible interactions?
Dear Marcel,
not to be able to detect all individual possibly unknown interactions should be no problem to define an entity like forest. The whole statistics in natural sciences are from this kind of beeing. Have a look at physical laws to describe gases, fluids, molecules in the atmosphere etc.
So it makes sense to define a thing like a forest by functions and impressions it gives to us observers. Therefore I like Francescos attempt of a definition. But he forgot that oceans or populations of animals and human beeings are also biodiversities without beeing forests.
This would imply that the definitions (of forests or other natural phenomena) are based on 'impressions' (e.g. landscapes consciosly perceived during a couple of milliseconds, seconds, minutes) because the human perception system can simply not handle the complexity of nature in an economic way?
Dear Marcel,
I knew your contradiction. But impression is meant as a scientific perception and description not as a psychological effect. If scientific impressions depend on your time interval you must enlarge the observing time. Somebody who describes a forest in millisecond should do some exercises. I agree that a single person will not be able to collect all infos about such a complexe system like a forest alone, but the human knowledge is a collection and confluence of many partial aspects.
I agree with Hanno- It is a Flora and Fauna that makes and survive in its community- Always depend on external forces like temperature, snow fall, daily natural light cycle, air quality, altitude, pressure, humidity, wind etc
besides, there are two forests: real and virtual. My conclusion is that for the first it is possibile to reach a definition but for the second impossible for its infinite interpretation
What is the definition of a virtual forest? To me, also 'real' forests 'suffer' from infinite interpretations depending on the scale of detail?
Thank you all. I may be wrong but real and virtual have not been kept separated?
@Francesco,
I need no definition of a "virtual" forest, just give me some hints to understand your terminology. Virtual forest?? Are you talking about fantasies, wishes, dreams?
Dear Marcel and Hanno,
I think Marcel might have thought on internet jungle as virtual forest. By the way, the place where I have a good time, where I can relax is the forest. Trees, forest trees are my siblings. I think, everybody should spend some time each day in the forest.
Internet jungle makes me “nerveux/nervös”.
I need harmony.
Dear Hanno,
Do you remember Das Wirtshaus im Spessart by Wilhelm Hauff, it contains many fine forest descriptions?
Dear András,
yes, the forest in Hauffs famous fable not only plays in the location of a real forest (I know it, because I had a lot of hikes by foot and cycle), but it´s also a myth full with fears, dreams, imaginations. But all these properties derive from the missing knowledge of the unknown.
Dear Hanno, that is what I meant. We are mixing the two as reading the various comments.
A forest in biological scientific terms is not subject to interpretations but simply synonims to define forest. If subject to different, personal descriptions (e.g. A place to relax) it is a "virtual" forest.
I have my greetings to you!
A personal definition for a forest is:
A forest is understood and understand as a set of timber and non-timber creatures, in land area, where together with sunlight, carbon dioxide, oxygen, surface water and groundwater and others are created so natural and / or man-made, living in symbiosis as a terrestrial and aquatic flora, with some bacteria and some protists and fauna in a geographically zonality limited, in a certain place, completely natural or not, touched or untouched by man, treated as high forests, coppice composed, simple coppice, bushes and others, recycled and renewable, with productive and protective functions, that has high economic, social and environmental values, expressed as forest products, non-forest and others.
Have a nice weekend!
Does this last nice personal definition include what is not visible, e.g. below the soil surface?
For instance, would the definition of 'forest' change when the definition focuses on what is above versus below the soil surface? Roots can also be forest products, oxygen and carbon occurs within pockets under the soil surface, for instance.
But then is forest limted within the range of the position of the highest leaves and the lowest positions of the roots?
Does this last nice personal definition include what is not visible, e.g. below the soil surface?
For instance, would the definition of 'forest' change when the definition focuses on what is above versus below the soil surface? Roots can also be forest products, oxygen and carbon occurs within pockets under the soil surface, for instance.
But then is forest limited within the range of the position of the highest leaves and the lowest roots?
@ Marcel M. Lambrechts,
I agree you with your coments, thanks a lot, but let me to give my answer: the soil surface is a visible when I have mentioned ... land area, so it is understandable by us.
For roots I have mentioned ... of timber and non-timber creatures, so they are included with all parts of tree, it is understandable by us and as a product.
... as regards the oxygen, carbon and others occurs within pockets under the soil surface, and at the same time in the atmosphere, for instance, it is a cycle complex ...
It is very dificult to be visible all in ...
However it is nice to be in debate with you, thanks a lot again!
The scientific community has come to a broad consensus on ecosystem term to describe specific natural biodiversities (e.g. forest). Sorry to found no reason to reverse the way, starting from bacteria, through infinite descriptions subject to individual interpretations, to come to the same final definition. Unless we are questioning FOREST ECOSYSTEM present scientific description(s).
OK! Why do we have to define 'forest ecosystem' when 'forest' includes all these aspects too?
Right, forest as an ecosystem is clearer. Forest on it own is valid but open to a myriad of descriptions/interpretations.
Why? 'Forest ecosystem' only involves the physical dimensions, not the artistic/spiritual dimensions?
How often will we find the words 'forest' versus 'forest ecosystem' in publications dealing with forest (management)/wildlife?
That is for I think we have two forests: real and imaginary. Here I am trying to describe with less words as possible the real one (pls. see previous comment re. imaginary "virtual"). Artistic/spiritual are imaginary. In scientific publications forest only is used for ecosystem is implicit .
Forests, components of the infinite universe in perpetual evolution, are dynamic aggregations of arboreal, deciduous or evergreen vegetation, subject to environmental stochasticity ; an ecosystem that includes all living organisms (biotic components) in an area as well as its physical environment (abiotic components), functioning together as a unit.
How about this?
I think it is practical impossible to define a forest as a functional unit for at least two possible reasons:
1) Many organisms can briefly visit a so-called forest without necessarily interacting with other organisms?
2) Different organisms have different perception mechanisms, and therefore are unaware of the presence of other organisms, e.g. a micro-organism on spot A will not/never interact with a bird on spot B?
Do different organisms of the same forest belong to the same social connectivity web?
I think it is practical impossible to define a forest as a functional unit for at least two possible reasons:
1) Many organisms can briefly visit a so-called forest without necessarily interacting with other organisms?
2) Different organisms have different perception mechanisms, and therefore are unaware of the presence of other organisms, e.g. a micro-organism on spot A will not/never interact with a bird on spot B?
Should organisms of the same so-called forest belong to the same social connectivity web?
Marcel, would you please elaborate a bit on functional unit in ref. to forest. Do you mean life-cycle units?
Dear @Francesco,
Perhaps there is more than one social network within a forest without connectivity across networks? If a functional network is for instance based on acoustic communication across bird species, how to be in functional contact with organisms that cannot perceive the sounds produced by birds?
Are social network units mainly determined by the perception mechanisms of the participants?
What do you mean with life-cycle units?
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