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Ferns can have important roles. The remarkable adaptations of ferns to various disturbances including their abilities to accumulate toxins in their environment suggest an important role for ferns in conservation and restoration.
Ferns and lycophytes were long considered as mystical plants because people did not understand how they could reproduce without ever producing a flower a fruit or a seed Moran 2004.
Ecological importance of ferns in the ecosystem. Of the ecological importance of ferns among natural resource professionals such as ecologists conservationists and land-use managers. The remarkable adaptations of ferns to various disturbances including their abilities to accumulate toxins in their environment suggest an important role for ferns in conservation and restoration. The ecological role that ferns play is difficult to pin down.
Its sufficient to say that the 12000-plus species of ferns in the world likely play many many different roles. Heres a brief list of some of the amazing roles that ferns can play. Provide microhabitats as well as shelter and shade to small animals.
Ferns and lycophytes were long considered as mystical plants because people did not understand how they could reproduce without ever producing a flower a fruit or a seed Moran 2004. In this book we address the mystique that surrounds ferns by exploring fern ecology or how ferns relate to their environment. Throughout the world whenever ferns are the focus of ecological research important.
Ferns make up an important component of tropical pteridoflora and serve important functions in ecosystem processes. The relative occurrence and distribution of ferns within the wetland area of. Ecologically the ferns are most commonly plants of shaded damp forests of both temperate and tropical zones.
Some fern species grow equally well on soil and upon rocks. Others are confined strictly to rocky habitats where they occur in fissures and crevices of cliff faces boulders and taluses. Since they retain water and humidity in their habitats mosses and ferns are ecologically important.
In addition they make the soil fertile and control flooding. Farmers add mosses to their organic fertilizers because they provide important good nutrients for crops. Ferns in general provide an ecological service as bio-indicators for habitat health because of their sensitivity and preference for temperature humidity soil type moisture pH light levels etc.
Ferns thrive in a variety of habitats that flowering plants would often fail to dwell in such as tree limbs and rock crevices. Some are significant weeds and agricultural pests. The well known bracken.
Early demographic work with horticultural and economically important ferns challenged researchers to better understand the ecological life history of ferns. During the last five decades ferns have been considered an important experimental group for developmental biology plant physiology eg antheridiogens phytochrome and evolution. Ferns have acquired a mystique over time largely.
Since they retain water and humidity in their habitats mosses and ferns are ecologically important. In addition they make the soil fertile and control flooding. For these reasons mosses and ferns are grown commercially.
Another economic use of ferns is the treatment and dressing of wounds. Welcome to the Community Centre. Programs Run TUES WED 1860 Division Rd N Kingsville ON N9Y 2Z1.
They play a crucial role as they provide the chief and in sometimes the only habitat for a rich fauna and flora which play an important role in the forest ecosystem Ursula et al. Epiphytic ferns collect masses of humus which provide nesting sites for many species of arboreal ants and other invertebrates. Ferns are part of the ecosystem.
Their immediate value may not be recognizable but they evolved with our flora. They serve a purpose in the landscape. Ferns are a place of rest for insects amphibians and our eyes.
Although their role in the ecosystem may not be as blatant as that of a bee balm they still serve an important purpose. When flowers are abuzz with activity or seeds are. Fern thickets can delay successional transitions but ferns also provide regeneration sites for other species and stabilize slopes.
Fern influences may vary across environmental resource eg light water nutrients and topographic gradients. Ferns can have important roles. First they can propagate through sexual reproduction spores and vegetative reproduction clones to form single-species dominant community.
Vegetative propagation is more important for fast growth and occupying ecological space. Second the allelopathic effect leads to. Given todays rapidly growing appetite for forest and ecological knowledge FERNS offers a network that will be more effective and efficient than the information-sharing capabilities of individual installations.
FERNS is representative of Canadas world-class forest research.