The Rospuda river valley

The Rospuda river valley is situated in the western part of the Augustów Forest. Although one of the most valuable mire complexes in Poland, it has not received any important conservation status yet (except that it is included in the Area of Protected Landscape). It is a place where numerous rare and legally protected species of plants and animals occur. Its most precious qualities are the vastness of the valley and totally undisturbed water relations. Its hydrological system bearing no signs of human-made disruption guarantees the existence of unique habitats together with the plants and animals relying on them.
The richness of the Rospuda valley is reflected in several dozen plant associations: mire, reed and tall-sedge bed, woodland, water, spring and sand dune grassland ones (Sokołowski 1996). Vascular plants are represented by a wealth of species commonly occurring in the Augustów Forest as well as a range of rare ones among which 35 are legally protected - ca.20 representing the Orchid family, 14 species from the Polish Plant Red Data Book and 23 from the Polish "red list".

There are plans to designate the area National Nature Reserve. It will be a part of the planned Augustów-Druskienniki Transboundary Protected Area comprising areas adjoining the border in Poland, Lithuania and Byelorussia.

With regard to its geomorphological, hydrological, biotic and landscape conditions and considering existing and proposed protected sites the whole area has been classified as the international ecological core area within the National Ecological Network ECONET-PL.

However, for a few years now plans have been discussed to build the by-pass of Augustów badly wanted by the inhabitants. It is unavoidable for it to cut through the valley of the Rospuda. The question is - where?
Different interest groups have been pressuring for different routes. Naturalists opt for constructing the by-pass as far away as possible from the unique untransformed mires lying in the southern part of the valley. Intersected by a fast road they may be irreversibly destroyed.

Members of the "Save Wetlands" Association did a reconnaissance study of the place's vegetation and habitats. The surveyed area covered the southern part of the valley extending from the bridge near Święte Miejsce in the north to the Lake Necko in the south. This fragment of the valley varies in width - from 50 metres in the north to 1200 metres where there is an open expanse of sedge-moss mires to the north of the Rospuda and Szczeberka. confluence. The valley is surrounded by the morainic plateau with 10 -15 m differences in height.

The vegetation of the southern part of the Rospuda forms several zones across the valley. Close to the river bed grow water plant communities of the alliances of Potamion and Nymphaeion and also water crowfoots Ranunculus and water starworts Callitriche belonging to the alliance of Ranunculion fluitantis ^1,2.
A little further away from the river bed there are reedbeds, which also stretch over large fragments of the peatland (more than 80 ha), mainly in the north. These reedbeds are represented by Phragmitetum australis, the association of Phalaridetum arundinaceae and Glycerietum maximae. Yet further away there are tall sedge communities covering ca. 25 ha. These are mainly Caricetum appropinquatae ¹ and Cicuto-Caricetum pseudocyperi ¹ assemblages, less frequently Caricetum distichae ¹ and Caricetum ripariae ¹ and at places also Thelypteridi-Phragmitetum.
In the middle part of the area behind the tall sedge zone, more towards the edge of the valley lies an open expanse of fen transition mire with sedge-moss vegetation of the Scheuchzerio-Caricetea nigrae class. These sedge-moss communities, covering over 100ha are the most valuable habitat of the Rospuda valley. The fen has high water levels and most of it is completely free of encroaching willow or birch shrubs. It is dominated by small sedge communities with Carex rostrata, C. lasiocarpa, C. lepidocarpa and "brown mosses", mostly Tomenthypnum nitens, Drepanocladus s.l., Calliergonella cuspidata, Aulacomnium palustre with an addition of Sphagna at places. Most of the Rospuda valley plant communities belong to the quaking bogs of the Caricion lasiocarpae alliance ^1,2. A lot of fragments, however, are similar to or even identical with more nutrient-rich sedge-moss assemblages of the Caricion nigrae and Caricion davallianae alliances ^1,2. The open mire zone is surrounded by bog woodland and pine-birch shrubs classified as the Thelypteridi-Betuletum pubescentis association ^1,2*. They occur primarily in the broadest middle part of the valley covering nearly 300 ha and are natural or semi-natural with favourable water conditions. Directly next to the open mire considerable areas are occupied by shrubs or sparse low woodland with birches, pines and willows. Some of them belong to the Betulo-Salicetum repentis association.
Close to the mineral slopes of the valley there are spruce forests on peat or alder swamp forests. The former, Sphagno-girgensohnii Piceetum ^1,2*, cover only small patches at the edge of the valley between birch-pine bog woodland and the forests on the mineral slopes.
Alder swamp forests (Carici elongatae-Alnetum ¹) in the valley have a "model look" and are very well preserved. Owing to the favourable water regime, they are largely natural in character. At places they cover quite big areas (over 50 ha), mainly alongside the valley borders, especially in the north and around the place where the Rospuda flows into the Lake Necko. They are usually connected with the sites richer in nutrients, with little horizontal water movement, located on strongly decomposed fen peat formed by reed- and tall sedge- beds under permanent flooding.

Mixed coniferous forests and fresh pine-spruce forests overgrowing the elevations around the valley and mineral islands among the mires belong to the Dicrano-Pinion alliance. Some of them form loose stands suitable for photophilous species with a continental range.

The above-described transverse zonality of vegetation is not kept throughout the entire length of the valley. Small patches of other plant communities are scattered in its different parts. These are:

• Raised bog covering only 4 ha among the huge fen/transition mire. It has patches of vegetation of the Rhynchosporion albae ^1,2* and Sphagnion magellanici ^1,2* alliances with the former taking over dominance. This bog is in its initial stage, being transformed as a result of changes in the way water is fed to the fen (rainwater rather than groundwater).
• Non-calcareous springs occurring near the edges of the valley as small mid-forest enclaves, consisting chiefly of the Cardamine amara - Chrysosplenium alternifolium ^1,2 community.
• Ash-alder carr, Circaeo-Alnetum ^1,2*, growing sparsely on the margins of the valley and along watercourses where they are fed with the water issuing on the slopes and sometimes on the mineral - organic substratum in the neighbourhood of the Rospuda river bed and its tributary, the Szczebra.
• Water plant communities in ox-bow lakes, mainly the Hydrocharitetum morsus-ranae ^1,2 and duck weed assemblages of the Lemnetea class.
• Scots pine bog woodland, Vaccinio uliginosi-Pinetum ^1,2*, covering small fragments among shrub complexes and birch-pine woodland.
• Oak-linden-hornbeam forests of the Tilio-Carpinetum ¹ association growing here and there on mineral islands on the mire and on the slopes of the valley. Their characteristic feature is the dominance of linden, which underlines their "northern" character. Some of them have been replaced with treestands dominated by the spruce.

More about Rospuda

• ADAMOWSKI W., KECZYŃSKI A., Miodokwiat krzyżowy Herminium monorchis i jego ochrona w projektowanym rezerwacie Rospuda /w:/ Parki narodowe i Rezerwaty przyrody, tom 17, nr 2/1998, s. 69-74.
• KARCZMARZ K., SOKOŁOWSKI A. W., Projektowany rezerwat torfowiskowy Rospuda w Puszczy Augustowskiej /w:/ Chrońmy Przyrodę Ojczystą, 19, nr 6/1988, s. 58-65.
• SOKOŁOWSKI A. W., Flora roślin naczyniowych rezerwatu Rospuda w Puszczy Augustowskiej /w:/ Parki narodowe i Rezerwaty przyrody, tom 9, nr 1/1988, s. 33-34.
• SOKOŁOWSKI A. W., Miodokwiat krzyżowy Herminium monorchis w Puszczy Augustowskiej /w:/ Chrońmy przyrodę ojczystą, 44, nr 4/1988, s. 70-74.
• SOKOŁOWSKI A. W., Zbiorowiska roślinne projektowanego rezerwatu Rospuda w Puszczy Augustowskiej /w:/ Ochrona Przyrody, nr 53/1996, s. 87-130.
• SOKOŁOWSKI A. W., KOT J., Przyroda województwa suwalskiego, Suwałki 1996, s. 72-73.

Ewa Jabłońska
Paweł Pawlikowski

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