This habitat type includes, in particular, springfens, but also springs without the surrounding fens which are important habitats for many rare species of animals and plants. Springs and springfens are located where groundwater flows or seeps to the surface – at the foot of slopes and brinks or in the riparian area of water bodies. There are about 3,000 known springs in Estonia, most of them small...

The very permanent primary communities formed of the white beak-sedge (Rhynchospora alba), brown beak-sedge (Rhynchospora fusca), oblong-leaved sundew (Drosera intermedia), round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), and marsh clubmoss (Lycopodiella inundata) in open wet peatlands, sometimes sand. They are found in blanket bogs, raised bogs, as well as in wet heaths with seeping water or cold...

A transition mire is an intermediate stage of a fen developing into an active raised bog. While the plants growing between the clods and beds still extract most of the nutrients from groundwater, plants growing on the clods and beds no longer reach the groundwater with their roots and feed mainly on the nutrients from rainwater. Therefore, sedges and other herbaceous plants characteristic of fens...

This habitat type includes bogs damaged by drainage, where peat formation has been interrupted and the original vegetation characteristic of a natural bog has been significantly changed or lost. Of these, those whose water regime can be restored are considered renewable, so that the vegetation necessary for peat formation could possibly be restored within thirty years. Drained bogs have no...

Active raised bogs are the last stage in the development of mires, where the peat formed from the dead parts of the plants is already so thick that the roots of the plants no longer reach the nutrient-rich water: nutrients mainly reach the bog through precipitation. The average thickness of the peat layer in Estonian bogs is 3.2 metres. The Vällamäe bog with its 17 metres has the thickest peat...

Natural or semi-natural (once man-made) pine forests, less often alder forests on coastal dunes. The tree layer and the undergrowth are well developed, the shrub layer is absent or consists mainly of juniper. This habitat type is found more on the South-Western Estonian coast from Ikla to Pärnu, in Northern and North-Western Estonia (Nõva, Roosta, Naissaare), but also elsewhere on the old coastal...

In a wooded pasture, open grassland areas alternate with sparse forest, tree or shrub patches. The grass layer, which consists mainly of grassland plants, has developed under the influence of long-term grazing and will only survive if normal use continues. Broad-leaved species (for example, oaks) often grow in the tree layer, and pasture grasses (tufted hairgrass, spear thistle, etc.) stand out in...

In Estonia, this habitat type includes the dry boreo-nemoral forests growing on the tops and slopes of eskers, moraine hills, and drumlins. The vegetation of the dry boreo-nemoral forests is similar to that of fresh boreo-nemoral forests on the one hand (that is caused by nutrient-rich soil) and to the alvar forests on the other hand (on the sunny slopes and tops, the soil may completely dry out...

This habitat type includes areas with good water supply and nutrient-rich soft soil humus in the valleys, depressions, foothills, and the edges of bogs with near-surface mobile groundwater. The tree layer is dominated by spruce, but broad-leaved species (ash, linden, elm, maple) may also be present, the share of which is quite large in some places. The species-rich grass layer is formed primarily...

The forests of occasionally flooded areas on river and stream floodplains, as well as on temporarily flooded lake shores, where the soil is enriched with the sediments of flood water. The species composition and structure of the forest depends on the part of the floodplain it grows on. Alluvial forests have formed on the lower parts of the floodplain, i.e. the parts that remain under the flood...