Pit and mounds are small, persistent microtopographical features that present themselves after a disturbance event occurs and uproots trees via windthrow.
The uprooted tree falls, and a pit forms in the forest floor where the root mass and associated soil matrix used to be.
The root mass must decay to an extent where the soil matrix that was suspended with it when it toppled over can slough off on to the ground near the corresponding pit.
[6] Mounds are observed to be generally more nutrient poor and fewer plants establish on them in comparison to pits for several reasons.
In fact, when scientists removed the leaf litter and monitored the species establishment within the pit, it was found that the diversity and number began to resemble that that occurred on mounds.
One would believe they would benefit from the presence of coarse woody debris as habitat and new flora that establish in the pit and mounds, but there is a lack of published evidence.
[citation needed] One macrofauna species that has received attention is the earthworm population in a lowland temperate rainforest of Belgium.
It was observed that both earthworm speciation and biomass differed based on location within the pit and mound microsites examined.
As more scientific literature crops up from around the world, it becomes more apparent what aspects of the pit and mounds occur in most any biome they are found in.
It can be argued that because pit and mounds occur on such a small scale, they may impact forest in the southern hemisphere in a different way.
[citation needed] Studies of pit and mound on a large time scale may be affected by the presence of herbivores in the area.