There are many other factors shaping the ecosystem, and one of the most important of these is topography: the configuration of the earth’s surface. A forest growing in a flat lowland area differs from a forest growing on a southward slope, and again from one on a northward slope.

These forests represent a transitory stage between acidophilic oak and acidophilic pine forests, and are found on poor gravel-sand or sand substrates. Pine/oak forests grow in soils which cannot he used for intensive farming and are a very common type of woodland at lower elevations.

Acidophilic pine forests – say pine woods with heather – grow on typical forest soil and particularly in extreme locations such as those with a shallow soil profile. These pinewood stands play a very important protective role.

Deep river valleys, clefts, and ravines support scree forests whose tree layer is composed mostly of ash, maple, lime, and elm. Because these are stands growing in extreme locations they are often excluded from normal management but serve instead as a protective and anti-erosion feature. Scree forests are considered to be of a fairly natural character as are beech forests.

The forest limit is not a line drawn with a ruler, even though it may seem to be in some panoramic views. It is influenced by many factors, depending on whether it marks the boundary between woodland or non-woodland communities in lowland country or in the mountains differs at various geographical latitudes, and it is affected by climatic variables such as cold, drought, or damp. Local factors which have a bearing on the forest limit include prevailing winds, avalanches and landslides, lightning, fire, the presence of salt in coastal soils, and damage to trees from wild animals.

Quite fortuitously, perhaps, present-day fields do actually resemble the true steppe ecosystem. The prevailing plants are grasses (grain) or short-lived herbs (cultivated poppies, sunflowers, flax) and the competitive relationships and stratification of the various plant layers are quite different from those of the forest ecosystem. With arable land, regular ploughing periodically bares the surface of the soil, and this paves the way for the existence and development of those species of plants best adapted to such a regime: chiefly annual, sometimes overwintering (less often) perennial herbs.