The vegetation of Pruno-Fraxinetum plant communities was described in 2004 – 2005 according to the Braun-Blanquet method throughout Latvia, in forests where common ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) are dominant species in tree layer on moist soils. Classification of relevés (in total 52) by two way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN) resulted in two variants of this association: typical variant (typicum) and variant with Filipendula ulmaria. Ellenberg indicator values were used to find out the relationship of flora with climatic (light, temperature, continentality) and edaphic (soil reaction, nitrogen, moisture) factors. Canonical correspondent analysis (CCA) was used to find out differences between two variants of Pruno-Fraxinetum. Results of this research have shown that these forests have complicated structure (form four vegetation layers, high species richness), which mainly depends on moist, rich eutrophic soils, usually with presence of limes. Main differential soil factors in ecological analysis are gradients of soil richness: moisture and nitrogen regimes. The influence of other factors was less expressed. Due to the human influence, especially drainage, the moist ash forests are decreasing and the species composition is changed. As Pruno-Fraxinetum forests in Latvia lie on the northern border of its distribution, the species composition differs from forests in the rest Europe; species characteristic determined by floodplain forests in Central Europe are absent.

Forests and woodlands provide a wide variety of ecosystem services that are usually classified within three categories: provisioning services, regulating (supporting) services and cultural services. While provisioning and regulating services are widely analysed, there is a lack of information about the cultural ecosystem services, particularly some sub-categories of these. In this study, we have focused on inspiration for creativity as a sub-category of cultural ecosystem services provided by forests and analysed the depiction of forest ecosystems in landscape paintings of Latvian artists. It may be concluded that forest ecosystems serve as an important source of inspiration for creativity and art, as may be seen in the landscape paintings of Latvian artists of the 20th century. Characteristic landscape features of birth and living places of the artists are reflected in their works. The performed analysis is the first of its kind in Latvia, and it may be further expanded, either by incorporating other aspects of creativity or adding economic dimension, for example, by surveying the art market.

This article presents the description of oak woodland key habitats and their importance in the maintaining of biodiversity as well as a necessity of management and monitoring. The lichens Lichenes and its percental cover features have been described. The exposition of lichen species depending on the cardinal points has been analysed. The article presents the characteristics of ecological indicators of lichens in the objects. The lichenoindicative evaluation and comparison of oak woodland key habitats in Latvia have been carried out.

The presented study aimed to explore the relationships between different indices of ambient ozone (O3) and tree defoliation, radial increment, and specific diversity and abundance of soil micro-arthropods, stream macro-invertebrates, small mammals (mainly rodents) in order to test the hypothesis that changes in the considered objects of forest ecosystem could be related to changes in ambient ozone concentration. The observations have been carried out on 3 integrated monitoring stations located in Aukstaitija (LT-01), Dzukija (LT-02) National Parks (NPs) since 1994, and Zemaitija (LT-03) NP since 1995. The obtained data revealed that only peak ozone concentrations (from 125 to 215 mug mE-3) had significant effect on changes in the considered components of forest biota. Radial increment and crown defoliation of Scots pine, a little lower the diversity of soil microarthropods, and the least diversity of small mammals were found to be the most sensitive to ozone exposure.