Wooded meadows (also named wood-meadows, park meadows, etc.) are ecosystems in temperate forest regions. They are sparse natural stands with a regularly mowed herbaceous layer.
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While frequent throughout Europe during the Medieval period and before, wooded meadows have largely disappeared. Wooded meadows originated with the practices of hunter-gatherer communities. They were important in terms of social organization around a natural resource and determined much of the community's interactions with the natural world. [1] In the early 20th century, wooded meadows were used for fruit cultivation in Sweden; however, their prevalence has decreased substantially due to changes in land management and a movement toward more intensive types of agroecosystems. [2] The more typical, calcicolous[ further explanation needed ] wooded meadows are common around the Baltic Sea. [3]
Wooded meadows have high species richness. In some of the current Estonian wooded meadows, world-record species densities have been recorded (up to 76 species of vascular plants per square meter). [4]
