William Wimsatt (1976b) emphasizes that while interlevel, compositional reductions are transitive, successional reductions through history are intransitive, so that a continuum between genuine successional reduction and replacement obtains.
Thus, from a site-specific perspective, a few species characteristic of early successional stages should decrease over time while many forest species increase as the regenerating vegetation becomes more similar to old-growth coastal dune forest.
However, these estimates are likely to be over-optimistic because successional rates tend to decrease with time.
Soil clay, organic matter and nutrient content significantly decreased along successional age, but soil sand, bulk density, pH and electric conductivity significantly increased.
As a result of land abandonment, the floristic species richness is decreasing in higher successional stages, and depending on the altitude, the structural diversity of the landscape is changing.
Thus, hypothesis H2 was confirmed (i.e. despite changes in the small mammal species composition, biomass did not decrease in the later successional stages, particularly due to the higher numbers, hence biomass, of M. glareolus).
Above-ground biomass in the studied forests (estimated at 539 t/ha, average among stands) tended to decrease as forests approach the late successional stage because large pioneers are replaced by smaller late-successional trees.
From early to late-successional stage, seed rain decreased in density, increased in per capita species richness, gradually changed in species composition, and became less aggregated spatially.
Abundances of forest dwelling, ground-nesting species increased steadily with time since harvest, while early-successional, shrub-nesting species decreased with time since harvest.
Density of terrestrial and medium-sized lizard species increased with successional age, while arboreal and small-sized lizards decreased.
