Rila Monastery Nature Park Management Plan - part - usaid

February 2004
3.0 Biological attributes
The biological characterization of the territory of RMNP provides information about
the biological diversity preserved within it: habitats, communities, as well as wildlife
species (plants, animals and macrofungi). The conservation status of species and
habitats has been assessed on the basis of both nationally and internationally
recognized criteria; it has been determined on the basis of whether these are found to
be rare, endemic, relict, protected under national legislation, included in Red Lists or
otherwise listed for protection as endangered on a European scale (on the lists of
CORINE, BirdLife International, the annexes to the Bern and Bonn Conventions, the
EC Directive on Birds or Directive of Habitats), or on the IUCN List of Globally
Endangered Animals, Plants and Mushrooms.
3.1 Ecosystems, habitats and communities
3.1.1 Ecosystems
Forest-type ecosystems or parts thereof are situated at altitudes between 800 and
2,200 m in the Park’s territory and occupy about 70% of its total area. Located in the
lowest altitudes are a beech forest ecosystem, dominated by beech (Fagus sylvatica);
riverine ecosystems of deciduous forests with an annual leaf cycle; ecosystems based
on gray alder (Alnus incana), as well as mixed forest ecosystems made up of beech,
common hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) and water hornbeam (Ostrya carpinifolia).
Parts of ecosystems of xerothermic oak forests are situated at altitudes higher than the
beech (altitudinal inversion), the Rila oak being the dominant species there. Such
altitudinal inversions in both types of ecosystem can be explained by the presence of
a practically stable atmospheric inversion observed throughout the territory. At the
top tier of this group of forest ecosystems is a system made up of beech and common
fir (Abies alba subsp. alba) and of King Boris’s fir (Abies borisii regis). The
ecosystem group of coniferous forests (whether homogeneous or mixed) occupies the
1,300 to 2,200 meter altitude zone. It is made up of spruce (Picea abies), Macedonian
pine (Pinus peuce), common fir (Abies alba subsp. alba), Scots pine (Pinus
sylvestris). Small tracts of forest have been found made up exclusively either of
spruce, or of Macedonian pine, or of Scots pine. Depending on altitude, transitional
types of ecosystems may be formed with different combinations of dominant species:
mixed spruce and common fir; mixed Scots pine and Macedonian pine; mixed spruce
and Macedonian pine, as well as mixed spruce and beech forests. The entire group of
ecosystems belongs to the natural vegetation.
Secondary (derivative) ecosystems and fragments thereof replace natural forests
destroyed by natural or man-made causes: tracts vacated by spruce or Scots pine are
taken over by ecosystems dominated by aspen (Populus tremula); by birch (Betula
pendula) or hazelbush (Corylus avellana); while destroyed spruce forests along the
riverside terraces give way to ecosystems dominated by gray alder (Alnus incana).
Rila Monastery Nature Park
Management Plan -Draft
2004 - 2013
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