The practice of forestry entails much more than knowledge of trees. How the trees are formed, arranged, and displayed can be interesting, too. To demonstrate this, let's examine some less-used forestry terms: edges, gaps, and clumps. In the environment, an edge is an obvious line of separation between two or more stands or habitat types. An example of an edge, often referred to as a "hard edge," is the point where a row crop field meets a forest. Here the line of intersection (the edge) is obvious. Avariation is the "soft edge." Soft edges occur when an intermediate successional stage exists at the hard edge - for instance a swath of briars and smaller tree seedlings growing between a field and forest. The line of intersection is more gradual, butstill distinguishable. Within a forest setting, however, a stand edge can be more difficult to detect. A forest stand edge is observed when the structure of the trees on either side of the edge is distinctly different, for instance in age, species, growth rate, density, etc. Typically an edge is caused by variations in soil and microclimate, and by previous disturbances to the site (such as harvesting, wind, agriculture, etc.).
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