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LIFE-Natur-Projekt "Rosenheimer Stammbeckenmoore" |
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Raised Bogs |
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| Raised bogs (German, "Hochmoore", Bavarian "Filze") belong to the most extreme life domains in Middle Europe. The ground contains dying peat (sphagnum) and other plant rests which are unable to decay in that kind of soil, poor on oxygen and high acidic (low pH), causing even more accumulation of growing peat layers (raised peat). They are not effected by groundwater, rich on minerals, instead they derive their water supply and nutrients directly from precipitation ( »ombrotrophic bogs), in other words, they get fed by rain. |
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Only special species of plants and animals are adapted to these exteme environment conditions, lacking in nutrients, e.g. sundew "Sonnentau" (Drosera spec.) and waterhose "Wasserschlauch (Utricularia spec.). As meat-eating species they developed methods for catching the smallest living beings securing themselves an additional source of "prey feed" nutrients. |
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Only about 5% of the raised moors in the bogs still remained natural and not effected from the former peat extraction i.e. mining and water drainage. Rare species of water plant and animal biotopes extinguished due to the drying up in the heathland and woodland regions. |
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| Cranberries "Moosbeere" (Oxycoccus palustris) grow close to the ground and are considered to belong to the low-growing perennial plant species known as chamaephyte due to its woody buds. Its berries used to be gathered for the making of jam. |
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| A common low-growing plant (chamaephyte) of the raised bog is the bog-rosemary "rosablühende Rosmarinheide" (Andromeda polifolia). |
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| Die eng am Boden wachsenden Moosbeere (Oxycoccus
palustris) gilt wegen ihrer verholzten Triebe noch als Zwergstrauch.
Ihre Beeren wurden früher nach den ersten Frösten zur Herstellung von
Marmeladen gesammelt. |
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| In the raised bogs you can find Sundew "Sonnentau (Drosera rotundifolia et intermedia) that catches small insects. These "meat eaters" (i.e. carnivorous also insectivorous) plant specimens lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surface. The insects are used to supplement the poor mineral nutrition that sundews are only partly able to obtain from the soil they grow in. (Photo: U. Hoelken) |
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The caterpillars of the clouded yellows butterfly "Hochmoorgelblings" (Colias palaeno) eat up on the leaves of the bog bilberry "Rauschbeere", a plant that grows knee high in raised bogs. The butterflies that emerge from the pupa need on the other hand unfertilized (e.g. not manured) litter and flower meadows, rich on blossoms. The important contact between low-growing (chamaephyte) bog plant specimens and raised bog flower meadows has become rare. The clouded yellows butterfly is endangered to extinguish and for this reason has been included meanwhile into the Bavarian Red List of threatend species. |
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