The Southeast Rügen Biosphere Reserve () is a

biosphere reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, funga, or features of geologic ...

in the German state of

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; ), also known by its Anglicisation, anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a Federated state, state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's States of Germany, sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpom ...

, which covers the southeastern part of the island of

Rügen Rügen (; Rani: ''Rȯjana'', ''Rāna''; , ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic ci ...

(including

Granitz The Granitz is a wooded ridge in the southeast of Germany's largest island, Rügen, between the Baltic Sea resorts of Binz and Sellin. The woods cover an area of 982 hectares and are designated as a nature reserve. Since 1991 they have been ...

and

Mönchgut Mönchgut (''Monk's Estates'' in German) is a peninsula of 20.66 square kilometers with 1,374 inhabitants in the southeast of Rügen island in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It lies just between the Greifswalder Bodden and the rest of the ...

), the lagoon of

Rügischer Bodden The Rügische Bodden is a bay which is part of a larger stretch of water, the Greifswalder Bodden, bounded on two sides by the German mainland and on a third by the Baltic Sea island of Rügen. It is located southeast of Rügen island between Mön ...

between

Putbus Putbus () is a town on the southeastern coast of the island of Rügen, in the county of Vorpommern-Rügen in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, close to the Baltic Sea. The town has 4,741 inhabitants and is a significant tourist destinat ...

and

Thiessow Thiessow is a village and a former municipality in the Vorpommern-Rügen district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and th ...

, the outer coast between Thiessow and

Binz Binz is the largest seaside resort city on the German island of Rügen. It is situated between the bay of Prorer Wiek and the ''Schmachter See'' (a lake) in the southeast of the island. To the north of Binz stretches the Schmale Heide (the "na ...

and the island of

Vilm Vilm is a Baltic Sea island in the bay south of the much larger island of Rügen, and is one of Germany's most remote and tranquil spots. Covering less than , Vilm is the remnant of a moraine left as the glaciers retreated about 6000 years ag ...

. In the biosphere reserve, all the classic landscape and coastal features of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern littoral are found within one small area. The land is deeply indented here by the sea. One the one hand, peninsulas and coastal headlands are linked by narrow strips of land, on the other side they are separated by lagoons known as ''

bodden Bodden are briny bodies of water often forming lagoons, along the southwestern shores of the Baltic Sea, primarily in Germany's state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. These lagoons can be found especially around the island of Rügen, Usedom and ...

s'' and open bays called ''Wieken'' locally. There are fine-sanded beaches and rugged

cliffed coast A cliffed coast, also called an abrasion coast, is a form of coast where the action of marine waves has formed steep cliffs that may or may not be precipitous. It contrasts with a Flat coast, flat or alluvial coast. Formation In coastal ar ...

lines, at the foot of which are impressive rocky beaches. Broad belts of reed girdle the shores. Beech woods or poor grasslands are found on the sites of

terminal moraine A terminal moraine, also called an end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front e ...

s and meadows and pastures in the depressions formed after the

Ice Ages An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and Gre ...

. Cultural features include

megalithic tomb A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging geographically f ...

s of the

New Stone Age The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide- ...

, Bronze Age

tumuli A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

, medieval churches and village layouts, and the

resort architecture Resort architecture () is an architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, plan ...

of the

Modern Era The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500 ...

. It was made a biosphere reserve in 1990 as part of the

GDR East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

's national park programme. * Area: 235 km² * Its variety of species includes its: ** great importance as a rest and breeding area for migratory birds, mainly various species of goose ( greylag,

bean A bean is the seed of some plants in the legume family (Fabaceae) used as a vegetable for human consumption or animal feed. The seeds are often preserved through drying (a ''pulse''), but fresh beans are also sold. Dried beans are traditi ...

and

greater white-fronted geese The greater white-fronted goose (''Anser albifrons'') is a species of goose, closely related to the smaller lesser white-fronted goose (''A. erythropus''). The greater white-fronted goose is migratory, breeding in northern Canada, Alaska, Gre ...

) ** bee species: e. g. furry, apex-furrowed and cone bees;

cuckoo Cuckoos are birds in the Cuculidae ( ) family, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes ( ). The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals, and anis. The coucals and anis are somet ...

and

social wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. T ...

s. ** colonies of

seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine (ocean), marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four Family (biology), families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and ...

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

and

green algae The green algae (: green alga) are a group of chlorophyll-containing autotrophic eukaryotes consisting of the phylum Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister group that contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/ Streptophyta. The land plants ...

in the nearshore areas of the Bay of Greifswald that form

spawning ground Spawn is the eggs and sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is known as spawning. The ...

s for Baltic Sea herring. The biosphere reserve has several core zones or total reserves. These include the Schwarzer See in the Granitz as well as the islands of

and parts of the Mönchgut and Zicker peninsulas.

Nature reserves

The seven nature reserves cover an area of 4,084 hectares: * Goor-Muglitz (142 ha) *

(1162 ha) * Insel Vilm (171 ha) *

(2320 ha) * Neuensiener und Selliner See (213 ha) * Quellsumpf Ziegensteine bei Groß Stresow (4 ha) * Wreechener See (72 ha)

Literature

* * http://www.biosphaerenreservat-suedostruegen.de/de/biosphaerenreservat * Umweltministerium Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Hrsg.) (2003): Die Naturschutzgebiete Mecklenburg-Vorpommerns, Schwerin, Demmler Verlag * Autorenkollektiv (1990): Mönchgut - eine Landschaftsstudie, Göhren/Greifswald, Ostseedruck Rostock/Bt Putbus© GeoBasis-DE/M-V 2010 * Frey, Hildegard: Rügen, 2. Auflage, Deutscher Wanderverlag, Stuttgart 1996.

External links

Verordnung über die Festsetzung von Naturschutzgebieten und einem Landschaftsschutzgebiet von zentraler Bedeutung mit der Gesamtbezeichnung Biosphärenreservat Südost-Rügen vom 12. September 1990Amt für das Biosphärenreservat Südost-Rügen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Southeast Rugen Biosphere Reserve Biosphere reserves of Germany Geography of Rügen Environmental protection Protected areas established in 1990 1990 establishments in East Germany