Impact of Past Landscape management on Current Forest Vegetation

The investigation took place in SE Slovenia (Bela krajina). During the field investigation floristic composition of forests was sampled and soil samples were collected in the same plots. The age of forest communities (period from abandonment of former land use) was estimated by old military and cadastral maps. The oldest data are from the end of 19th century. We tried find out how long in the past we can trace the past land use. We analyzed the changes in landscape in time, the course of succession, changes of plant traits and built up a generalized additive mixed model with four sets variables: a) soil parameters, b) plant traits, c) geoelements, d) elleneberg bioindicator values. It was established that soil parameters describe the best the course of succession. It was found out that »memory of forest« reaches also the time beyond the elaborated time period.