Natural Processes & the Broader Landscape: Mesic Mixed Hardwood Forest in Rock Creek Park
Natural Processes
What is responsible for forming and maintaining the “patterns” that we recognize as this natural community? What shapes the land, forms the soil and topsoil, influences the water supply and all the other things that bring and keep this suite of plants together? Natural processes. (Ecobit: Natural Processes)
Important natural processes in the Mesic Mixed Hardwood Forest include
- soil formation
- canopy gap regeneration
- microclimate
- processes that create soils that are not too wet, not too dry
Large-scale Natural Processes and Ecological Systems
Some natural processes act on large scales and affect more than one natural community at a time. For example, in Rock Creek Park three natural communities are found in similar positions in the landscape. The Mesic Mixed Hardwood Forest, the Basic Mesic Hardwood Forest, and the Coastal Plain Oak Forest all occur on rolling uplands and lower slopes of ravines, where they are protected from extreme weather conditions—such as the exposure to sun and wind at higher elevations, and flooding at lower elevations.
In fact, these three natural communities are all part of a larger unit that ecologists refer to as the Mesic Hardwood Forest Ecological System. An ecological system is a group of several natural communities that share many of the same natural processes and aspects of physical setting. By extension, they may also share many of the same plant and animal species.
Explore This Ecological System
Click on the chart below to learn about this ecological system and its natural processes.
