Ashdown Forest - Ecology

Ecology

Ashdown Forest is one of the largest single continuous blocks of lowland heath, semi-natural woodland and valley bog in south-east England. Its geology is a major influence on its biology and ecology. The underlying sandstone geology of the Ashdown Sands, when combined with a local climate that is generally wetter, cooler and windier than the surrounding area owing to the forest's elevation, which rises from 200 feet (61 m) to over 700 feet (210 m) above sea level, gives rise to sandy, largely podzolic soils that are characteristically acid, clay, and nutrient-poor. On these poor, infertile soils have developed heathland, valley mires and damp woodland. These conditions have never favoured cultivation and have been a barrier to agricultural improvement.

The Forest predominantly consists of lowland heathland. Of the 2472 ha of Forest common land, 55% (1365 ha) is heathland while 40% (997 ha) is mixed woodland. Lowland heathland is a particularly valuable but increasingly threatened habitat harbouring rare plant and animal species, which lends the Forest importance at a European level. The survival of the Forest's extensive heathlands has become all the more important when set against the large-scale loss of English lowland heathland over the last 200 years; within the county of East Sussex, heathland has shrunk by 50% over the last 200 years, and most of what remains is in Ashdown Forest.