European dune slacks; strong interactions of biology, pedogenesis and hydrology.

Dune slacks are a unique type of wetland ecosystem, highly ranked on the international conservation agenda because of the occurrence of many rare and endangered plant species and their associated fauna. Ecologically they present some of the few examples of primary succession seres with a high degree of facilitation between functionally distinct groups of plants and a strong impact of the interannual variation of the water table. Recent research has focussed on the biological and environmental processes counteracting the rapid loss of diversity owing to human impacts along most north-west European coasts.