Scientific publications

The study of mature blackberry spruce forests showed that the formation of forest litter depended mainly on the composition and properties of litterfall, and on the conditions of organic matter decomposition. The amount of litterfall was of less importance that corresponded to the data of other researchers (Lull, 1959; Covington, 1981 etc.). The quality of litterfall depended on environmental conditions of vegetation growth at the study sites.
The combination of climatic factors (temperate cold humid climate with a predominance of summer precipitation) determined the development of Podzol formation in the study area. We found that the trend of pedogenesis depeneds on the ratio and velocity of particular processes: humus accumulation, iron and humus illuviation, geying, and peat formation.
The processes were evidenced by the morphology and properties of soils.
We concluded that the general feature of forest litter formation in Middle taiga zone was the prevalence of processes of destruction, mineralizations and leaching, that resulted in formation of raw (mor-type) humus.