Acta Scientiarum Polonorum
Silvarum Colendarum Ratio et Industria Lignaria

This paper concerns the edge effect of a provincial road on the broadly understood inventory characteristics of the neighbouring inland dune pine stands in the “Puszcza Notecka” Forest in Poland. The observations were conducted in the pine stands in the fresh coniferous forest and fresh mixed coniferous forest sites. Twelve rectangular experimental sites, called belt transects, were established perpendicular to the road axis. Each of them consisted of 3–4 plots located at different distances from the pavement edge. In the course of the survey of the flora, a total of 108 plant taxa, out of which 70% are found solely in the immediate vicinity of the road, 25% were found both along the road and in the stand interior and 5% were found only inside the stand. The shrub layer and the forest floor vegetation layer showed a higher coverage and species richness with the opposite trend observed for mosses and lichens. Despite the significant participation of synanthropic plants, there was no invasion of alien species. Due to the low volume of traffic and the lack of maintenance treatments of road surface, the reasons of changes in the species composition are attributed to the modifications of light and humidity conditions.