along major rivers are valuable communities protected by the EU Habitat Directive and
recommended for monitoring. Part of the reason for that is relative rarity on the scale of
Europe as a whole, and also in Poland. This in turn reflects the way in which fertile habitats
were, in their majority, deforested long ago, drained and changed into grasslands or arable
land. Additionally, the greater part of these habitats have lost their specific features, as a …