Biotope mapping Gesäuse — part area Haglwald, Plattental, Wandau

In August 2013, the survey area “Haglwald, Plattental, Wandaubauernkar” in the Gesäuse National Park was mapped on a total area of just under 230 hectares on a scale of 1:2,000. As a result, a comprehensive biotope mapping based on the biotope type catalogue of Styria in the altitude range between 480 and 1.550 m is available. 33 different biotope types were detected on 656 individual surfaces. 12 FFH habitat types could be occupied on more than 80 % of the mapping area. Almost half of the area is built up by natural to natural book-dominated forests of the types Carbonateschutt-Fichten-Trnen-Buchenwald or mesophile lime-beech forest. A thermophilic lime beech forest could be documented as a rarer biotope type above the country wall up to the slope-crossing forest. About an eighth of the mapping area forms spruce forests, mostly as edaphic permanent societies on dry extreme locations over rugged forms of Dachstein limestone. Another area box consists of open to closed or stable high-mountain carbonate grasslands, characterised by Sesleria caerulea, Carex sempervirens and Helictotrichon parlatorei, which are extensively formed in the wall-builder’s car. On the highest positions of the backs are usually latschen bushes. The often wide avalanche channels are often lined with rimless legbeech bush forests. Isolated lower locations above Zwanzenbichl to the Lime Valley carry heavily anthropogenic overformed forest stocks with dominant spruce. The historical consideration of the development of the area over the past 130 years also demonstrates a high degree of proximity to nature for this study area, with the exception of some areas in the Haglwald forest of the middle and lower locations of the Kitzberg.