EUROPEAN DUNE SLACKS - STRONG-INTERACTIONS OF BIOLOGY, PEDOGENESIS AND HYDROLOGY

Dune slacks are a unique type of wetland ecosystem, highly ranked on t he international conservation agenda because of the occurrence of many rare and endangered plant species and their associated fauna. Ecologi cally they present some of the few examples of primary succession sere s with a high degree of facilitation between functionally distinct gro ups of plants and a strong impact of the interannual variation of the water table. Recent research has focussed on the biological and enviro nmental processes counteracting the rapid loss of diversity owing to h uman impacts along most north-west European coasts.