Lessons from Bialowieza

Most of you have never heard about me, about Bialowieza or even about what a primeval forest is, let alone had the chance to be in one. My name is João Ferro, I was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1971, and I am a nature guide and animal tracker in the Bialowieza biosphere reserve in Poland and Belarus. You must be asking what a guy from Lisbon is doing in a place in the dead end of Europe far from his original home; well the answer is I am living my passion. My life is my passion and my passions are my life, and my main passion is to learn about life.



As far as I can remember, I always felt an enormous urge to be in nature and to learn about the secrets of life, no matter whether human life or wildlife. When I was a young child and teenager, I was very influenced by some great people and their capacity for communication and vision helped me to deepen my concepts about life and how to open horizons. Among the most important influences are Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, David Attenborough, Jacques Cousteau, Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles and Bill Mollison. Ultimately, it was because of these influences that I am now living and working in the Bialowieza Biosphere Reserve. For the ones who don't know what Bialowieza is, here is a short summary:

•	Bialowieza is a forest complex with several levels of protection where we can find some of the best preserved temperate lowland forests in Europe, some of these parts are defined as being primeval.
•	Parts of Bialowieza forest are biosphere reserves since 1977 and a world heritage site since 1979.
•	The forest of Bialowieza has the tallest native trees in Europe and has no equal regarding the number and age of monumental trees.
•	Bialowieza harbours some of the last functional landscapes and ecosystems in Europe with outstanding biodiversity. It’s a unique place to understand and study uninterrupted cycles of nature (the water cycle, life cycle and decomposition cycle).
•	Bialowieza was also the place where the European bison was saved from extinction and where one of the biggest wild European bison populations can be found.

European bisons in the Bialowieza biosphere reserve. / Picture: Frank Vassen / Licence: Creative Commons.

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Understanding the concept of a functional landscape and ecosystem as described above is a challenge for the majority of people I guide through the forest. I presume that a functional ecosystem/landscape is from a purely mechanistic point of view, a system where the natural cycles, evolution of species or ecosystems, and the interaction between individuals and species with the surrounding conditions is kept in balance. No matter what cultural, ideological, religious, political, philosophical, personal or educational perspectives may exist, nature’s mechanics are unchangeable and universal, no matter the continent, the climate, geography or time.

In our present culture, mass media, politicians, NGO's, activists, ideologies and individuals report that nature is in danger. This cannot be further from the truth - it's not nature that is in danger, it's our culture and way of living that is threatened and ultimately the existence of our own species since we are constantly disrupting the natural tendency of nature to be in full balance. Of course, many species face risk of extinction and probably many will be extinct in the near future, but this does not mean that nature is at risk. LIFE is very, very resilient and the planet has eons of time to develop new species that would play their own role in the cycles of nature with or without us.




The study of uninterrupted cycles of nature is only possible in very few european forests. Bialowieza is probably one of the very few places in Europe where all cycles of nature are in dynamic balance. / Picture: Jacek Karczmarz / Licence: Creative Commons

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For us to understand nature basic’s functioning, we must know its main principles:

•	Nature is plastic: it evolves, changes, reshapes, appears and disappears according to its present conditions.
•	Nature is in constant evolution: it is a function of all the interactions and influences experienced by all organisms that may evolve or disappear.
•	Nature is not linear: nature is in opposition to what is taught in schools or by mainstream information channels. It does not evolve or move from point A to B in all circumstances; it looks more like a complex internet of infinitesimal relations of actions and reactions between all participants.
•	All species are important and at the same time limited: humans, for example, are part of nature. Like it or not, we are just one more species of no greater or lesser importance than any other species on this planet. We are shaped and limited by the same overall rules, both influencing and being influenced by the other species and limited by the present conditions.
•	Nature always evolves in the direction of homeostasis: meaning that given time, all cycles of nature will be in dynamic balance.
•	Nature always evolves in a constant direction to full potential climax: the full potential climax is achieved given time for evolution, availability, diversification and integration according to the local conditions and possibilities.
•	Nature does not have morals or ideology: in nature all organisms exist as far as they will be integrated and as far as they will be functional individually and collectively. A species that is not functional and is not integrated sooner or later will change or will become extinct. All species will try to LIVE and succeed independently of our moral, cultural or ideological judgement.
•	Nature has limits: in the nature of life there is one major limit - consumption can never be greater than the capacity of production, be it of a single organism, a full species or an ecosystem.
•	In nature production and consumption must be in balance and this is achieved by the regulatory principles of predation, parasitism, competition, symbiosis, mutualism and commensalism.

All of these principles are shaped by the primary influences of nature:

Time, Climate, Astronomical, Geology, Atmosphere, Water, Energy, Life, Death, Nutrients, Toxins, Balance

Bearing these principles in mind, one can ask what are we doing to nature and why are we in such a controversial moment in human evolution? Although this risks oversimplification, I can say that our present fundamental error as a civilization, despite our ideologies and scientific opinions, is a failure to understand the basic principles of nature in an impartial way. Through this blind-spot we are unable to align ourselves with the fundamentals of nature’s mechanics, or to understand sustainability in the true sense of the term.



Allowing logging in parts of the Bialowieza forests that were theoretically included in the Natura 2000 network of protected spaces, man now interferes directly in the major cycles of nature, that remained unaltered for centuries.

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Sustainability in nature, in opposition to the present mainstream economic ideology, is in keeping with some basic factors that all of us should have learned in primary school:

•	Consumption can never exceed the production capacity of a system, for obvious reasons.
•	The number of consumers cannot exceed the production capacity.
•	The nutrient cycle output must always be returned; otherwise we walk towards impoverishment of the ecosystems and eventual collapse.
•	The input of toxins cannot exceed the capacity of their own neutralization.
•	The constituents of the planetary system cannot be changed in great measure, be it in the atmosphere or hydrosphere for example.
•	The water cycle is of major importance and special care must be provided to not disrupt this cycle, what we consume must be returned in the same quantity to the same place.
•	Our food consumption, be it animal, fish or vegetable, cannot disrupt the main cycles and must be integrated within the production capacity of the place.

So how did Bialowieza influence me into the point where I am now? Bialowieza influenced me since it is one of the few functional ecosystems in Europe and in the world. It gave me a perspective that no book can give, by watching, feeling, and learning about life in a place with minimal human influence in the past and present. The greatest of the lessons arrived and will always be there when I spend time in the forest, since nature is an infinite depository of information on life and an example for us humans individually and collectively. Everything mentioned in this blog, comes from this direct observation of nature's functionality.


A representation of the interactions between functional components in an ecosystem in dynamic balance.

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But what is the concept of functionality? It's the same as homeostasis, the term is used in biology regarding the function of an organism, but I also use it to explain the balance of a macro-organism like planet earth. This is analogous to the Gaia hypothesis, and of course one can scale it down or up to a living system of any size. In order for a climax system to maintain functionality, the energy flows within it must have a perfect syntropic balance. This is a crucial point, because it is exactly the one we humans do not respect and ultimately leads to us walking towards Armageddon. Without understanding this term and respecting this principle, we are doomed to dysfunctional systems and ultimately to collapse since we still live in a culturally entropic value system and not in a syntropic one. While the universe may tend towards entropy, nature is pushing towards syntropy, and what is not able to live according to this principle is reorganized or dies and its constituent matter and energy are available for renovation or reorganization.

In a fully functional system minor disturbances will always tend towards a fast reorganization of the system and to a new homeostasis, while major disturbances, human or not, will cause a major disruption in the system that will need more time to adjust, to reorganize and become a major opportunity for evolution and reorganization of the system. One must always bear in mind that nothing is passive in nature, there is always some sort of change, the process of evolution is permanently directed towards a constant complexification of the system. This can be simplified for a moment in time over and over again but all systems tend towards this complexity. I exemplify this while guiding with an image everybody understands – imagine a grass lawn in a park, if there is no no maintenance of this lawn, over time the ecological law of succession will act and the same grass lawn after a few years will become a bushland dominated by bushes and a few trees, give it some more time and it will become a young forest dominated by pioneer tree species, after about 150 years and it will become a mature forest and so on. The issue with this concept is that most humans tend not to know this obvious principle or to be actively opposed to it, thinking that the ideal landscape is stable, according to a certain personal concept, be it a boring lawn, a potato field or grandma's flower garden and they all make a gigantic effort to contradict what is one of the major rules of nature, constant change.




Most of our interventions in the landscapes are in reality an enormous effort we undertake to work against one of the most important rules of Nature: Nature always evolves in a constant direction to full potential climax.

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When this concept is fully understood, the idea of invasive species or noxious weeds sounds absurd. I can agree that initially there will be a certain level of disturbance when a novel species establishes itself, but with time everything will tend to balance and this will be particularly fast if the ecosystem has rich possibilities or is already in balance. So why is this concept of invasiveness so advertised? This is a complex net of ideas and interests but to simplify is based on an erroneous concept of life on this planet and cemented with fear and exclusion. Another concept I've learned by living here in Bialowieza is that there is no exclusion in nature, any organism with time will become extinct or become integrated in the system. Specific species might profit and dominate for a certain amount of time (maybe for a short human lifetime), but sooner or later the natural system will balance the species composition. Here I can give another example – imagine an exotic pine plantation in France, for example. With no human maintenance, different species available in the area will start to install themselves in the pine plantation and after 200 or 300 years, it will not be an exclusive pine plantation anymore, maybe some pines will still be there but it will tend to become a complex mosaic of different species in a mixed forest.




In an abandoned Eucalyptus plantation in the Kalakad-Mundanthurai reserve, in the south of India, the number of tree species increased since 2005 and now is similar to the number of tree species in the neighboring primigenial forest. However, these plantations have been mainly colonized by pioneer species for the time being and a long time will be necessary to see the original species make their come back. / Fotografía: Abandoned plantations in forested areas may not recover fully: Study

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Most people also do not realise that nature's cycles are extremely long - much greater than a human lifespan. The full development of an ecosystem from the moment of disruption might take about 1000 years to become a full-fledged system, from its present over simplified state (like a lawn) until it becomes a primeval forest with no major signs of human influence.

To finish with a major idea – LIFE goes on and on and is in constant change, no matter our personal views and assumptions. There is nothing else greater than LIFE in its capacity for permanent evolution and complexification.

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Author: João Ferro

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Paleo-autochtonous species (5): Cedrus

Cedar of "La Francesa", in the region of Béjar (Salamanca). It is undoubtedly one of the most imposing Atlas cedars in the Iberian Peninsula, in a region where this species was probably still present in the Holocene.

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The quaternary glaciations were a real catastrophe for the continent's biodiversity, and its tree flora greatly impoverished during this period. The cedars, so common today in our parks and gardens, belong to a genus that was one of the last to disappear from the continental zone of the European continent. A single species, relictual, was able to survive on the island of Cyprus (Cedrus brevifolia), being this species the last representative of this type in Europe.

Origin and expansión

Confined now to the mountains of North Africa, southern Turkey, the Middle East and the Himalayas, the origin of this genus is found in East Asia, as shown by phylogenetic studies (1) and fossil evidence. From there, it expanded to the west, differentiating firstly the Himalayan cedar. After colonizing the whole south of the European continent, an eastern population was differentiated from which the cedar of Lebanon and the cedar of Cyprus would be born and a western population reaching North Africa through the Iberian Peninsula when the Strait of Gibraltar was closed in the Yonger Miocene (Messinian).




It is interesting to note that the differentiation of cedar, a result of the isolation of different populations, does not prevent the crossing of different species, which often makes it difficult to identify the individuals planted in our parks, which may be the result of the crossing of several of these species . This process of differentiation seems to be quite old in any case, prior to the glaciations. At the end of the Pliocene, the cedar (sensu lato) was present in all reliefs from the south of the continent, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Caucasus.




Regression and possible refuges

Cedar was already at the end of the tertiary, an average elevation tree that coexisted in many places now missing with conifers as Tsuga and Cathaya. These species took refuge during the glaciations, in the peninsulas of the south of the European continent. Its presence is commonly accepted in the Italic Peninsula and in the north of the Iberian Peninsula until the Middle Pleistocene. The presence of cedar pollen in more recent sediments is generally attributed, however, to wind transport from North Africa. The detailed study of some recent pollen diagrams suggests, however, that cedar could be present in the Peninsula until much later dates.




Pollen diagram of deposit of Cuerpo de Hombre (Sierra de Gredos). Notice in particular the simultaneous decline of the pine and the cedar at the moment when man arises.

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A recent study in postglacial sediments of the Sierra de Gredos [2] reveals the more or less continuous presence of cedar in one of the analyzed profiles, which is hardly explained by a contribution from the North African wind. The pollen diagram of this profile (Cuerpo de Hombre) shows that the emergence of cedar always coincides with periods when the tree cover reaches a maximum, as reflected by the pine curve. The disappearance of the cedar, on the other hand, coincides with the disappearance of the pine at the time when the forests of this region were overthrown and that these lands completely changed of use. A more random presence of cedar would have been more compatible with wind transportation. The most convincing argument in favor of a local origin of this pollen, however, is its total absence in the other profiles studied in this same region. It seems very improbable that after a journey of several hundred kilometers, the cedar pollen appears "concentrated" in a single profile. Anyone who has experienced an episode of "desert dust" knows perfectly well that when this happens, the desert sand covers vast expanses indiscriminately.




A ski resort in the Pyrenees on a desert dust day last April (2018) / Photography: https://twitter.com/hashtag/lluviadebarro

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A very similar situation is observed in other regions. In Andalusia, for example, cedar pollen appears in significant quantities in sediments at the Bajondillo grotto (Torremolinos), where it has a continuous presence in the pollen diagram until the end of the last glacial period, coinciding with the emergence of the Aleppo pine [3]. Here again, it seems that it is not the result of mere coincidence. But in the same way is the total absence of the cedar in the sediments of the same time in the cave of Gorham (Gibraltar), only to 60 km more to the west, what is more remarkable in the context of a contribution by the wind. It should be noted that the cedar itself is present in this same deposit in older sediments (Upper Pleistocene).




Pollen diagram of the cave del Bajondillo (Torremolinos). Note the simultaneous development of Abies, Betula and Cedrus at the end of the last ice age.

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This heterogeneity of cedar presence in Upper Pleistocene and Holocene sediments is explained much more easily by the presence of small Cedar populations in the Iberian Peninsula. Its disappearance, as shown by the Sierra de Gredos example, would have been very recent and the man apparently has a clear responsibility because the species has not survived to this day. This will only be definitively demonstrated on the day that Holocene macrorrests are found attributable to this species. For now it is only a suspect, but the evidence clearly indicates that it would be present. For now, as far as I know, no one has explained the absence of the cedar in all places near and contemporaneous with those in which its presence was revealed.

	Cedrus	Familia: Pinaceae	Orden: Pinales
	Trees evergreen, monoecious; branchlets strongly dimorphic: long branchlets growing several cm each year and bearing very slow-growing, lateral short branchlets; winter buds small, scales persistent. Leaves spirally arranged and radially spreading on long branchlets, shorter and very densely clustered on short branchlets, needlelike, triangular or ± quadrangular in cross section, stiff, stomatal lines present both adaxially and abaxially, most numerous abaxially, vascular bundles 2, almost fused, resin canals 2, small, marginal. Cones borne on apex of short branchlets, solitary, erect. Pollen cones with many spirally arranged microsporophylls; microsporangia 2; pollen not saccate. Seed cones erect, light purple at fertilization, maturing in 2nd(or 3rd) year; ovulate scales spirally arranged, sessile, with small bracts and 2 ovules adaxially. Seed scales closely arranged, large, woody, those at base and apex of cone sterile, deciduous at maturity. Bracts minute, falling together with seed scales at maturity from persistent, central axis. Seeds with large, membranous wing. Cotyledons usually 6-10. Germination epigeal. 2n = 24. Descripción:  eFlorss

A bright future

Climate change represents, for the Atlas cedar, a serious threat and an extraordinary opportunity. Rising temperatures, in fact, have already pushed the lower-lying populations of North Africa to the limit. Illegal logging and overgrazing are also very serious threats in their area of origin and the future of the species in North Africa is very uncertain. Fortunately, French foresters soon realized the potential that this species could have in the Mediterranean region and the species was planted in France practically since it was discovered (by Europeans). The cedar forests of the Luberon and Mont Ventoux today show the extent to which this species is perfectly adapted to the sub-Mediterranean climate which is precisely one of the types of climate that most will see its area extend north to the end of the century, making this species one of the most promising for the future.




Cedar grove in the Petit Lubéron massif (France), where they cover about 207 ha. only in the territory of the small town of Lacoste. The planting of cedars in this massif that was totally "peeled" in the nineteenth century was a resounding success, becoming its cedar forest one of the great attractions of the region. Photography: Tourist Office of Lacoste.e

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Paradoxically, this species did not arouse in Spain the same interest as in France and was only planted on a very small scale. (Atlas cedar in the Iberian Peninsula). The current climate must, however, lead our authorities to become more interested in this tree, which was one of the most important species of our mountains before being a victim of glaciations and overexploitation. The quality of its wood, its relative resistance to drought and its low flammability are, in any case, compelling reasons that argue in its favor.

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		(1) Qiao C-Y. Et al. (2007) / Phylogeny and Biogeography of Cedrus (Pinaceae) Inferred from Sequences of Seven Paternal Chloroplast and Maternal Mitochondrial DNA Regions / Annals of Botany, Vol. 100. pp. 573–580,
		(2) Ruiz-Zapata1 M.B. et al. (2011) / Dinámica de la vegetación durante el Holoceno en la Sierra de Gredos (Sistema Central Español) / Bol. R. Soc. Esp. Hist. Nat. Sec. Geol., Vol. 105 (1-4), pp. 109-123
		(3) López-Sáez JA, López-García P, Cortés Sánchez M. 2007. Paleovegetación del Cuaternario reciente: Estudio arqueopalinológico. En: Cortés Sánchez M. (Ed), Cueva Bajondillo (Torremolinos). Secuencia cronocultural y paleoambiental del Cuaternario reciente en la Bahía de Málaga. Centro de Ediciones de la Dipu- tación de Málaga, Junta de Andalucía, Universidad de Málaga, Fundación Cueva de Nerja y Fundación Obra Social de Unicaja, Málaga, pp 139-156

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Author: Adrián Rodríguez
Translation: João Ferro

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Paleo-autochtonous species (4): Avicennia

One black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) recently established grows in the middle of a brackish swamp north of St. Augustine, Florida, near the northern border of this cold-sensitive tropical tree. Mangroves are expanding in northern Florida as the episodes of intense cold become rarer. Photograph: Kyle C. Cavanaugh (Landsat Satellite Sees Florida Mangroves Migrate North)

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I evoked in a previous article (Ecosistemas terciarios desaparecidos), the presence of mangroves on the southern coast of the Iberian peninsula at the end of the Tertiary and early Quaternary, documented by the discovery of extraordinarily well preserved fossils whose study is still underway (Hallados fósiles de manglares de hace 2,5 millones de años en Cuevas). Based on this I imagined, in another more recent article (Rumbo al Plioceno), as in the future more or less distant the Romería del Rocío possibly have to progress in boats between the roots of the mangroves. In writing this article, however, I was not aware that the possibility of seeing a mangrove grow on our coast may not be as far as I expected...




Current distribution of Avicennia germinans

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As you can see in the previous map, the black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) reaches in North America the eastern shores of Florida. The northern boundary of its distribution does not seem to be so marked by average annual temperatures or rainfall, but by the fact that there are cold days when the temperature falls below -4 ° C. Below this temperature, black mangrove seedlings do not survive. On the other hand, a relatively recent study [1] has shown that global warming has led to the development of the mangrove swamp in the north since the 1980s, where the tree colonizes coastal areas.




As you are intelligent and have agile minds, you have surely noticed seeing the map of distribution of this species that the north of Florida is situated at about the same latitude as the Canaries. And as you well know, the Gulf Stream flows southward off the coast of North America, bringing cold waters from the north, and rising northward off the coasts of Africa and Europe. In addition, there are many areas of southern Spain, where temperatures do not drop below 0 degrees. Huelva, for example, is often the city of Spain with the highest minimum temperature. The cold ever in this city was -5.8 degrees and was achieved in 1938. Later, it only reached that limit of -4ºC in 1954. The big question, you guessed it, is this: could the black mangrove survive in southern Spain? As far as I know, no one happened to try to plant this species in our country, but seeing that the climatic limitation marks the limit of its distribution in Florida, I wonder if perhaps the experiment is worthwhile, although only to clear the doubts. In the worst case we would have a small mangrove swamp on our coast...




Potencial distribution of Avicennia germinans suposing that this species is able to survive in zones where frost is exceptional. Author: Joâo Ferro.

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	Avicennia	Family: Acanthaceae	Order: Lamiales
	Shrubs or trees, maritime. Branches terete, sometimes 4-ridged when young. Leaves opposite. Inflorescences small spikes or capitula; bracts and bractlets ovate, shorter than calyx, persistent. Flowers small, opposite, sessile. Calyx cup-shaped, deeply 5-lobed; lobes overlapping, persistent. Corolla nearly actinomorphic, campanulate, shortly inserted on an inconspicuous disc; lobes 4 or 5, upper lobe often broader than others. Stamens 4, adnate to apical part of corolla tube. Ovary imperfectly 4-locular, with a free central winged placenta; ovules pendulous. Capsules subtended by persistent calyx, dehiscent into 2 leathery valves. Description: Flora of China

The presence of this genus on the European continent and in the Mediterranean is documented until the beginning of the Quaternary. Apparently the mangroves survived longer in the eastern Mediterranean basin, disappearing less than 2 million years ago around the Black Sea.



Latest records of Avicennia mangroves in the Mediterranean [2]

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I did not live in Madrid, far from the sea and not have a holiday in very favorable areas, I do not think I would hesitate to try. The region of Huelva seems a priori to be the most favorable, but I have to admit that I do not know this region very well. Can you imagine how extraordinary it would be to have a small mangrove swamp on our coast? Not only for the curiosity but also for the multiple benefits that this type of ecosystem brings where it develops. Everyone probably knows that the mangroves are authentic nurseries for many species of fish. There is no doubt in my mind that such an initiative would quickly come to an end, with initial reluctance, the unconditional support of many people. Yes, the idea is launched. I hope that in this country people are even more insane than those who write these lines...

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		[1] Cavanaugh K. C. et al. (2014) / Poleward expansion of mangroves is a threshold response to decreased frequency of extreme cold events / PNAS, Vol. 111(2), pp. 723–727
		[2] Biltekin, Demet. (2010) / Vegetation and Climate of North Anatolian and North Aegean Region Since 7 Ma According to Pollen AnalysisTésis / Tésis / Université Claude Bernard – Lyon 1 & Université Technique d'Istanbul

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Author: Adrián Rodríguez
Translation: João Ferro

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