Evelyn Hackl Soil microbial investigations in natural forest reserves For 25 years, a representative network of forest reserves has been established in Austria.
Forest reserves are forested areas where no forest utilisation is taking place.
Human interventions are excluded in order to guarantee that these ecosystems may develop naturally. The main interest in creating forest reserves has always been to develop strategies of nature oriented silviculture. Additionally, the forest reserves offer the possibility of studying the structure and function of ecosystems widely unaffected by anthropogenic influences. Until now 160 natural forest reserves have already been established, representing several different forest types of biogeographical relevance. These forest reserves are monitored for their vegetation composition and forest development by the Austrian Federal Forest Research Centre.