  (abridged) Star formation in the Taurus--Auriga (TA) molecular clouds is
producing binary-rich aggregates containing at most a few dozen systems within
a region spanning one pc without massive stars. This environment is very
different to another well-studied star-forming event which produced the Orion
Nebula cluster (ONC). Differences between these two environments have been
found. Notably, the ONC has a significantly smaller binary proportion but a
significantly larger number of isolated brown dwarfs per star than TA. This
paper focusses on the dynamical evolution of the TA aggregates and the changes
in their binary populations with an emphasis on the brown-dwarf properties.
