J. Wehberg

Soils and Nutrients in Northern Mountain Birch Forests: A Case Study from Finnmarksvidda, Northern Norway

Although birch forests cover large areas of northern Fennoscandia, with the mountain birch Betula pubescens ssp. czerepanovii often forming the altitudinal and arctic forest line, very little is known about the soils typical for these areas. This is a great difference from the boreal coniferous region farther to the south and the arctic–alpine belt of the Caledonian mountain range, where quite a few studies dealing with soils in different ways have been carried out in the past decades (e.g. Jauhiainen 1969, 1970; Ellis 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985; Kuhn 1983; Breburda 1987; Meyer et al. 1988; Venzke 1990; Darmody et al. 2000). There are only a few publications on Quaternary deposits and soils in the northern Fennoscandian mountain birch forests (e.g. Haapasaari 1988; Stutzer 1995), the most comprehensive describing soil types and their distribution near the forest line some kilometres to the south of Alta, Finnmark (Mosimann 1981). More recent publications concentrate on special aspects of soil formation within the birch forests, such as the influence of long-lasting frozen ground and permafrost (e.g. Meier 1985, 1987, 1991, 1996). With this background, soils were investigated in more detail during the summers of 2001 and 2002 as a case study in connection with the EU project HIBECO (Human Impact on Mountain Birch Ecosystems) in the gently undulating plateau landscape of the Finnmarksvidda between the Alta river power plant in the north and the Finnish-Norwegian national border in the south (see details given on the attached CD, and Chap. 2).