Search results for "Beech"

Monitoring elevation variations in leaf phenology of deciduous broadleaf forests from SPOT/VEGETATION time-series

2011

International audience; In mountain forest ecosystems where elevation gradients are prominent, temperature gradient-based phonological variability can be high. However, there are few studies that assess the capability of remote sensing observations to monitor ecosystem phenology along elevation gradients, despite their relevance under climate change. We investigated the potential of medium resolution remotely sensed data to monitor the elevation variations in the seasonal dynamics of a temperate deciduous broadleaf forested ecosystem. Further, we explored the impact of elevation on the onset of spring leafing. This study was based on the analysis of multi-annual time-series of VEGETATION da…

Holocene vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily (Italy)

2016

Knowledge about vegetation and fire history of the mountains of Northern Sicily is scanty. We analysed five sites to fill this gap and used terrestrial plant macrofossils to establish robust radiocarbon chronologies. Palynological records from Gorgo Tondo, Gorgo Lungo, Marcato Cixé, Urgo Pietra Giordano and Gorgo Pollicino show that under natural or near natural conditions, deciduous forests (Quercus pubescens, Q. cerris, Fraxinus ornus, Ulmus), that included a substantial portion of evergreen broadleaved species (Q. suber, Q. ilex, Hedera helix), prevailed in the upper meso- mediterranean belt. Mesophilous deciduous and evergreen broadleaved trees (Fagus sylvatica, Ilex aquifolium) dominat…

Patterns of drought tolerance in major European temperate forest trees: climatic drivers and levels of variability

2013

The future performance of native tree species under climate change conditions is frequently discussed, since increasingly severe and more frequent drought events are expected to become a major risk for forest ecosystems. To improve our understanding of the drought tolerance of the three common European temperate forest tree species Norway spruce, silver fir and common beech, we tested the influence of climate and tree-specific traits on the inter and intrasite variability in drought responses of these species. Basal area increment data from a large tree-ring network in Southern Germany and Alpine Austria along a climatic cline from warm-dry to cool-wet conditions were used to calculate indi…

2021

Climate change is having a serious impact on many ecosystems. In the summer of 2018 and 2019, around two thirds of European beech trees were damaged or killed by extreme drought. It is critical to keep these beech woods healthy, as they are central to the survival of over 6,000 other species of animals and plants. The level of damage caused by the drought varied between forests. However, not all the trees in each forest responded in the same way, with severely damaged trees often sitting next to fully healthy ones. This suggests that the genetic make-up of each tree determines how well it can adapt to drought rather than its local environment. To investigate this further, Pfenninger et al. …

New national and regional bryophyte records, 48

2016

Andreaea rothii has been recorded for the first time in Croatia. It is a boreo-temperate suboceanic species (Hill et al., 2007) relatively rare in SE Europe, since it is known only from Romania (Ellis et al., 2014d), Slovenia and Serbia (Sabovljevic´ et al., 2008 ; Hodgetts, 2015). The species was found in the Papuk Mountains, situated in the mainly lowland area of NE Croatia. In this region Papuk is the largest and highest mountain range, with peaks between 800 and 900 m a.s.l. They are characterized by high geological diversity dominated by metamorphic rocks, such as different types of schists, as well as granites. The climate is temperate, moderately warm without an explicit dry period. …

One taxon does not fit all: Herb-layer diversity and stand structural complexity are weak predictors of biodiversity in Fagus sylvatica forests

2016

Abstract Since adequate information on the distribution of biodiversity is hardly achievable, biodiversity indicators are necessary to support the management of ecosystems. These surrogates assume that either some habitat features, or the biodiversity patterns observed in a well-known taxon, can be used as a proxy of the diversity of one or more target taxa. Nevertheless, at least for certain taxa, the validity of this assumption has not yet been sufficiently demonstrated. We investigated the effectiveness of both a habitat- and a taxa-based surrogate in six European beech forests in the Apennines. Particularly, we tested: (1) whether the stand structural complexity and the herb-layer speci…

Does air pollution influence the success of species translocation? Trace elements, ultrastructure and photosynthetic performances in transplants of a…

2020

Abstract Species translocation can be considered as a primary conservation strategy with reference to in situ conservation. In the case of lichens, translocations often risk to fail due stress factors associated with unsuitable receptor sites. Considering the bioecological characteristics of lichens, air pollution is among the most limiting stress factors. In this study, the forest macrolichen Lobaria pulmonaria was used as a model to test the hypothesis that the translocation of sensitive lichens is effective only in unpolluted environments. At purpose, 500 fragments or whole thalli were translocated in selected beech forests of Central Europe (the Western Carpathians, Slovakia) where the …

Response of soil mites (Acari, Mesostigmata) to long-term Norway spruce plantation along a mountain stream

2018

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, coniferous monocultures were introduced, replacing natural broadleaved forests in Central Europe, mainly for economic benefits. In the mountains, Norway spruce [Picea abies (L.) H. Karst] was introduced in large areas previously covered with beech forests and also in natural riverside habitat corridors such as river valleys, despite its negative impact on the soil environment by e.g. organic matter accumulation, decrease of soil pH and changes in C/N ratio. We aimed to check how long-term Norway spruce plantations affect species richness and diversity of soil mites along a mountain river in former mixed and broadleaved forests. The study, based…

Effects of traditional coppice practices and microsite conditions on tree health in a European beech forest at its southernmost range

2016

Abstract: European beech (Fagus sylvatica) grows at the southern limit of its range in the mountain-Mediterranean vegetation belt up to the timberline. The southernmost beech forests of Sicily (southern Italy) show peculiar ecological, structural and silvicultural characteristics, growing in fragmented and isolated stands near the timberline and in topographically marginal unfavorable habitats. Past silvicultural practices increased the heterogeneity of stand structure at these sites. We compared stand structural characteristics and tree health in coppice-cut and control beech stands with respect to the local topographic gradient (bottom, slope and ridge) and canopy cover (clearing/border v…

Statistical modelling and RCS detrending methods provide similar estimates of long-term trend in radial growth of common beech in north-eastern France

2011

International audience; Dendrochronological methods have greatly contributed to the documentation of past long-term trends in forest growth. These methods primarily focus on the high-frequency signals of tree ring chronologies. They require the removal of the ageing trend in tree growth, known as 'standardisation' or 'detrending', as a prerequisite to the estimation of such trends. Because the approach is sequential, it may however absorb part of the low-frequency historical signal. In this study, we investigate the effect of a sequential and a simultaneous estimation of the ageing trend on the chronology of growth. We formerly developed a method to estimate historical changes in growth, in…