Åseral

Åseral is a municipality in Vest-Agder county, Norway. The administrative center is the village of Kyrkjebygda.

The parish of Bjelland had to be divided into two formannskapsdistrikts on 1 January 1838. This is because the main part of Bjelland belonged to the county of Vest-Agder, while the annex Aaseral belonged to the county of Aust-Agder. Åseral was transferred from the county of Aust-Agder to the county of Vest-Agder on 1 September 1880.

It is an inland municipality, bordering on the county of Aust-Agder in the east and north. In the south, it borders on the municipality of Audnedal, in the south-east on Hægebostad, and in the west on Kvinesdal.

General information

Name

The Old Norse form of the name was Ásaráll. The first part of the word is probably the genitive case of áss (m.), meaning "mountain ridge". The last part, áll (m.) means "long strip", probably referring to the long and narrow lake Øre.

Coat-of-arms

The coat-of-arms is from modern times (1989). It shows a horseshoe (to represent agriculture, forestry, and good luck).

Seral community

A seral community (or sere) is an intermediate stage found in ecological succession in an ecosystem advancing towards its climax community. In many cases more than one seral stage evolves until climax conditions are attained. A prisere is a collection of seres making up the development of an area from non-vegetated surfaces to a climax community.

A seral community is the name given to each group of plants within the succession. A primary succession describes those plant communities that occupy a site that has not previously been vegetated. These can also be described as the pioneer community. Computer modeling is sometimes used to evaluate likely succession stages in a seral community.

Depending on the substratum and climate, a seral community can be one of the following:

Examples

Seral communities in secondary succession can be seen in a recently logged coniferous forest. During the first two years, grasses, heaths and herbaceous plants such as fireweed will be abundant. After a few more years shrubs will start to appear; and about six to eight years after clearing, the area is likely to be crowded with young birches. Each of these stages can be referred to as a seral community.