Forest stand growth dynamics in Central Europe have accelerated since 1870
By Hans Pretzsch, Peter Biber, G. Schütze, Enno Uhl, Thomas Rötzer. Nature Communications, 2014
605 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Forest ecosystems have been exposed to climate change for more than 100 years, whereas the consequences on forest growth remain elusive. Based on the oldest existing experimental forest plots in Central Europe, we show that, currently, the dominant tree species Norway spruce and European beech exhibit significantly faster tree growth (+32 to 77%), stand volume growth (+10 to 30%) and standing stock accumulation (+6 to 7%) than in 1960. Stands still follow similar general allometric rules, but proceed more rapidly through usual trajectories. As forest stands develop faster, tree numbers are currently 17–20% lower than in past same-aged stands. Self-thinning lines remain constant, while growth rates increase indicating the stock of resources have not changed, while growth velocity and turnover have altered. Statistical analyses of the experimental plots, and application of an ecophysiological model, suggest that mainly the rise in temperature and extended growing seasons contribute to increased growth acceleration, particularly on fertile sites. The growth dynamics of forest ecosystems undergoing climatic change are not well understood. Here Pretzsch et al. show that two of the dominant tree species of Central Europe have undergone significantly accelerated growth dynamics during the past century.
Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a33158b7e3e804bba71aab8d48a814b129f6fc34
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Atmospheric Science
In Global and Planetary Change
In Nature and Landscape Conservation
Citations in the corpus
- Traits to stay, traits to move: a review of functional traits to assess sensitivity and adaptive capacity of temperate and boreal trees to climate change (2016, background): “2011) to bud/leaf and cambium phenology and growth patterns (Chmielewski and Rotzer 2001;Morin andChuine 2014; Pretzsch et al. 2014).”
- Tree species mixing can increase maximum stand density (2016, methodology): “From the 133 permanent plot network, which is under survey since 1870 (Pretzsch et al. 2014b), we selected 134 60 plots from 29 trials, comprising 217 surveys altogether (Table 1).”
- Drought can favour the growth of small in relation to tall trees in mature stands of Norway spruce and European beech (2018, background): “2012) but also accelerate tree growth (Kauppi et al. 2014; Pretzsch et al. 2014).”
- How Sensitive Are Ecosystem Services in European Forest Landscapes to Silvicultural Treatment (2015, background): “As a recent empirical study shows [34], past climate change (together with the fertilizing effects of increased N-immissions and CO2 supply) has accelerated forest dynamics in Central Europe.”
- Positive species diversity and above‐ground biomass relationships are ubiquitous across forest strata despite interference from overstorey trees (2017, background): “Furthermore, stand age is known to influence plant com- munity structure, standing biomass and productivity (Michaletz et al. 2014; Pretzsch et al. 2014; Taylor et al. 2014) (Fig.”