The Southeast Rügen Biosphere Reserve (german: Biosphärenreservat Südost-Rügen) 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, or features of geological or o ...

in the German state of

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in pop ...

, which covers the southeastern part of the island of

Rügen Rügen (; la, Rugia, ) 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 city of Stralsund, w ...

(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 bee ...

and

Mönchgut Mönchgut (''Monk's Estates'' in German) is a peninsula of 29.44 square kilometers with 6600 inhabitants in the southeast of Rügen island in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany. It lies just between the Greifswalder Bodden and the rest of ...

), the lagoon of Rügischer Bodden 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, the outer coast between Thiessow and

Binz Binz is the largest seaside resort 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 "narrow h ...

and the island of

Vilm The Baltic Sea island of Vilm lies 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 yea ...

. 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 th ...

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 or alluvial coast. Formation In coastal areas in whic ...

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

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 gree ...

. 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. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

s of the

New Stone Age The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several par ...

, Bronze Age

tumuli A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or '' kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones b ...

, medieval churches and village layouts, and the

resort architecture Resort architecture (german: Bäderarchitektur) is an architectural style that is especially characteristic of spas and seaside resorts on the German Baltic coast. The style evolved since the foundation of Heiligendamm in 1793, and flourished espec ...

of the

Modern Era The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also called modern history or modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended approximately 1500 AD). This terminology is a historical periodization that is appli ...

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

GDR East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...

'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 several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes t ...

and greater white-fronted geese) ** 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 sometimes separat ...

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. ...

s. ** colonies of

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

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 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

and

green algae The green algae (singular: green alga) are a group consisting of the Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister which contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/ Streptophyta. The land plants ( Embryophytes) have emerged deep in the Charophyte alg ...

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 releasing the eggs and sperm, and the act of both sexes is called spawning. Most aquatic animals, except for aqu ...

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