Muddus (; ) is a

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

in northern

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. It is situated in the province Lapland, with its largest part in the

Gällivare Municipality Gällivare Municipality (; or ; ; ) is a municipality in Norrbotten County in northern Sweden. Its seat is Gällivare. It is the third largest municipality in Sweden. Gällivare Lapland Airport is the only airport in the region able to accommod ...

. Furthermore, it belongs to the largely untouched

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

classified

Laponian area Laponia, or the Laponian Area, is a large mountainous wildlife area in the Lapland province in northern Sweden, more precisely in Gällivare Municipality, Arjeplog Municipality and Jokkmokk Municipality. The name comes from the Latin name for L ...

. Natural scenes include the

old-growth forest An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio ...

with large trees, large

bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and musk ...

gy grounds, and deep

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ...

s in between the rocks. Sweden's oldest known

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

tree is also located here. It has been estimated to be at least 710 years old, as it was found to have withstood a forest fire in 1413.

Wildfires

Forest fires in Muddus National Park have left traces on sample plots. There are fire scars on living or dead trees or

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...

fragments in the humus layer. The park was investigated on 75 separate sample plots. Some of the major fire years in the Muddus area coincide with forest fires in other parts of northern Sweden, in the

taiga Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. In North A ...

western Russia European Russia is the western and most populated part of the Russian Federation. It is geographically situated in Europe, as opposed to the country's sparsely populated and vastly larger eastern part, Siberia, which is situated in Asia, encomp ...

, and in

central Siberia The Central Siberian Plateau (; ) is a vast mountainous area in Siberia, one of the Great Russian Regions. Geography The plateau occupies a great part of central Siberia between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. It is located in the Siberian Plat ...

. There is constant regeneration happening in the wildlife in the National Park. Forest fires were shown to have occurred in the five different types of forest. The fires that were most frequently occurring of fires in the pine forests occurred with within the span of 81–90 years, while the mean frequency was 110 years. The interval of time elapsed since the last forest fire occurred in the pine forests was 144 years. Some of the major fire years in the Muddus area coincide with forest fires in other parts of northern Sweden, in the taiga of western Russia, and in central Siberia.

Mires

In 1940 a range of mires were found in the Muddus National Park. The park also went under investigation for its mires and

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

s. The mires consisted from

ombrotrophic Ombrotrophic ("cloud-fed"), from Ancient Greek ὄμβρος (''ómvros'') meaning "rain" and τροφή (''trofí'') meaning "food"), refers to Soil, soils or vegetation which receive all of their water and nutrients from precipitation, rather ...

s to rich fens. They are found to be very rich in

bryophyte Bryophytes () are a group of embryophyte, land plants (embryophytes), sometimes treated as a taxonomic Division (taxonomy), division referred to as Bryophyta ''Sensu#Common qualifiers, sensu lato'', that contains three groups of non-vascular pla ...

s. There are 66 species and you can find them in dry habitats as well.

Geography

It is known for its waterfalls, deep ravines, low mountain and forest where the trees have seen many generations of people pass by.

Wildlife

Birds

Due to a large-scale forestry landscape structure; the structure and composition of

boreal Boreal, northern, of the north. Derived from the name of the god of the north wind from Ancient Greek civilisation, Boreas (god), Boreas. It may also refer to: Climatology and geography *Boreal (age), the first climatic phase of the Blytt-Sernand ...

bird communities are in North Sweden. Birds control the effects of patch size, forest age and tree species compositions. The most common birds that live in the park are

Capercaillie ''Tetrao'' is a genus of birds in the grouse subfamily known as capercaillies. They are some of the largest living grouse. Feathers from the bird were used to create the characteristic hat of the bersaglieri, an Italian ace infantry formation. ...

. These birds are

black grouse The black grouse (''Lyrurus tetrix''), also known as northern black grouse, Eurasian black grouse, blackgame or blackcock, is a large Aves, bird in the grouse family. It is a Bird migration, sedentary species, spanning across the Palearctic in m ...

and

hazel hen The hazel grouse (''Tetrastes bonasia''), sometimes called the hazel hen, is one of the smaller members of the grouse family of birds. It is a sedentary species, breeding across the Palearctic as far east as Hokkaido, and as far west as eastern a ...

. They are constantly being reproduced in the forest year-round. The second most common bird that is found here is the

Siberian jay The Siberian jay (''Perisoreus infaustus'') is a small jay with a widespread distribution within the coniferous forests in North Eurasia. It has grey-brown plumage with a darker brown crown and a paler throat. It is rusty-red in a panel near the ...

and Siberian tit. These birds are intensely present mostly during the summer time. Other animals that reside in the park are

whooper swan The whooper swan ( /ˈhuːpə(ɹ) swɒn/ "hooper swan"; ''Cygnus cygnus''), also known as the common swan, is a large northern hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan, and the type species for the genu ...

s, bean geese and

black-throated loon The black-throated loon (''Gavia arctica''), also known as the Arctic loon and the black-throated diver, is a migratory aquatic bird found in the northern hemisphere, primarily breeding in freshwater lakes in northern Europe and Asia. It winte ...

s appear on the lakes. Located at the

marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...

es of the park, cranes,

sandpiper Scolopacidae is a large family of shorebirds, or waders, which mainly includes many species known as sandpipers, but also others such as woodcocks, curlews and snipes. Most of these species eat small invertebrates picked out of the mud or so ...

s and snipes are present

Deer

Reindeer are in the Muddus National park are present in the area year-around. Although rare, there are also brown bears, lynx and wolverines in the park. It is common, to encounter reindeer, elk or some of the forests’ and marshes’ many birds.

Flora

The Muddus National Park trees show how large non-systematic variations are there. This is due to climatic changes because of

industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...

in Sweden through the years. There are an abundance of spiders that have been found in the Muddus National Park. In particular, There has been four species of different genital characters of

spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

s have been found. This is due to the abundance of

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

forest, and shallow lakes in the northern taiga zone. There was 157 spiders collected from the southern park of the park.

References

External links

Sweden's National Parks: Muddus/Muottos National Park
from the

Swedish Environmental Protection Agency The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (), formerly the National Swedish Environment Protection Board () is a Government agencies in Sweden, government agency in Sweden responsible for proposing and implementing environmental policies. It was ...

{{authority control National parks of Sweden Geography of Norrbotten County Protected areas established in 1942 1942 establishments in Sweden Tourist attractions in Norrbotten County Lapland (Sweden) Gällivare Municipality 20th-century establishments in Norrbotten County