Search

Knowledge gaps still exist concerning the resilience of Norway spruce growth to changing climate conditions especially outside their natural range. We used a dendroecological approach to assess growth resilience of Norway spruce to changing moisture availability on different sites in southwest Germany near the xerothermic range limits of this species. We described the temporal and spatial variation of Norway spruce tree-ring width, comparatively assessed the response of tree-ring width to changes in moisture availability between different study sites and assessed the capacity of Norway spruce growth to absorb disturbance by drought. To assess the capacity, we applied the concept of resilience and the concept of early-warning signals to tree-ring width data. The results indicated no adequate short-term adaptive capacity to changing climate conditions for the respective Norway spruce trees within the study period. Furthermore the results showed an enhancement of growth synchronicity among the trees at each study site which is highly correlated with changes in moisture availability. Critical slow down, loss of buffering ability and simultaneous increase in spatial correlation are indicative of a loss in growth resilience of Norway spruce. We assume that the capacity of Norway spruce trees to absorb disturbance in terms of their growth response to moisture deficits decreased presumably as a consequence of a series of drought events in the more recent past.

In densely populated regions, forests can help protect communities and infrastructures from natural hazards such as avalanches and rockfall. To promote the protective function, substantial efforts are made to actively manage forest stands. In 2009 alone the Swiss government invested more than 60 million sfr for the maintenance of protection forests. However, to date there has been no comprehensive evaluation of how the structural development of actively managed stands differs from that of passively managed stands in the Alps. Over the past century the structure of Norway-spruce dominated subalpine forests of the Swiss Alps has been changing and it is not clear how these changes affect the potential protective function of these forests, as well as other forest functions such as wildlife habitat. Furthermore, it is not clear how stand dynamics and structural changes differ between stands that are actively managed and those that are passively managed, and thus to what degree active efforts of forest management are contributing to stands that actually have a greater protective function than passively managed forests. In this study, we analyzed the dynamics of subalpine forests using time series of forest inventory data and examined the influence of active vs. passive management, exposition, distance to treeline, elevation and slope steepness on stand structure and dynamics. We analyzed data from 395 plots in dense, subalpine, spruce-dominated forests in the Swiss Alps. Data were collected during three distinct periods (1983–1985, 1993–1995 and 2004–2006) as part of the Swiss National Forest Inventory (NFI). Using regression trees and multivariate statistics, we investigated which factors have the most important influence on tree growth and stand development. Overall, forest density increased significantly over the last 20 years and the predominance of dense forests increased at higher elevations. However, forest density has not increased in actively managed forests over the past 10 years. In passively managed stands, density was higher on south-facing slopes than on north-facing slopes. The volume and density of dead wood has increased over the last 20 years in both actively managed and passively managed forests. Active management over the last 20 years has maintained forest conditions that adequately maintain stands’ protection functions in the Swiss Alps. However, stand development, especially increasing density, in the passively managed stands of the Swiss Alps suggests that the majority of passively managed stands also provide adequate protective functions against rock and avalanche hazards without the high costs of active management.

Producing high value veneer wood requires that the tree bole be branch-free. This can be accomplished by natural or artificial pruning. Since wild cherry does not self prune well, pruning artificially is the only practical option. The study analysed the effect of conventional whorl-wise pruning and selective pruning, on height growth, diameter growth and secondary shoot development of wild cherry. Four pruning treatments were applied on cherry trees in summer 2007, one group of cherries was left unpruned to serve as a control: treatment C1 (upper 5 whorls left), C2 (upper 3 whorls left), S1 (removal of branches larger than 3 cm or with an angle to the stem

Regional and temporal growth variation of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) and its dependence on air temperature and precipitation were compared in stands across latitudinal and altitudinal transects in southwestern and eastern Germany, Norway, and Finland. The temporal variation of radial growth was divided into two components: medium- and high-frequency variation, i.e. decadal and year-to-year variation, respectively. The medium-frequency component was rather different between regions, especially the southern and northern ones. However, within each region the medium-frequency growth variation was relatively similar, irrespective of altitudinal and latitudinal differences of the sample sites. A part of the high-frequency variation was common to all four regions, which suggests that some factors synchronising tree growth are common for the entire study area. The high-frequency component of growth was more strongly related to monthly air temperature and precipitation than was the medium-frequency variation. The limiting effect of low temperatures was more significant at northern as well as high-altitude sites, while the importance of precipitation increased in the south and at low altitudes.