Annals of Forest Research: ten years of international publication

The paper presents some history and the last ten years of Annals of Forest Research as an international scientific publication

Adaptive genetic potential of European silver fir in Romania in the context of climate change

Five provenance tests with twenty-six European silver fir autochthonous populations were used in order to assess the response of populations to climate change. Height growth and diameter at breast height of trees at age 31 years were considered as response variables and eight climate variables as predictors. Climatic variables for the trial sites and for origin location of provenances were calculated from 1961 to 2010. The experiments revealed a large genetic variability within species level and a plastic response to climate change, which certainly has a genetic basis. The transfer to warmer climate has resulted in an increase of the provenances growth, in the trial sites situated on the lower vegetation layer. But growth is significantly influenced by mean annual temperature and annual precipitation of planting site and also by the differences in mean annual temperature, annual precipitation, monthly mean temperature in July and July precipitation between provenance site and test site. These are the climatic factors which should be associated with risk in case of the transfer of forest reproductive materials. The provenance origin should be especially considered if the species will be planted outside of its current climate optimum. The best provenances in terms of total height and diameter at 1.30 m came from origin climate close to site climate, small transfer distances. Based on growth response functions and RCP4.5 scenario, we could project the shifts in species distribution for 2050s and 2100s and identify vulnerable populations.</p

Influence of sampling and disturbance history on climatic sensitivity of temperature-limited conifers

The study was supported by the institutional project MSMT (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000803) and the Czech Ministry of Education (Project INTER-COST No. LCT17055).Accurately capturing medium- to low-frequency trends in tree-ring data is vital to assessing climatic response and developing robust reconstructions of past climate. Non-climatic disturbance can affect growth trends in tree-ring-width (RW) series and bias climate information obtained from such records. It is important to develop suitable strategies to ensure the development of chronologies that minimize these medium- to low-frequency biases. By performing high density sampling (760 trees) over a ~40-ha natural high-elevation Norway spruce (Picea abies) stand in the Romanian Carpathians, this study assessed the suitability of several sampling strategies for developing chronologies with an optimal climate signal for dendroclimatic purposes. There was a roughly equal probability for chronologies (40 samples each) to express a reasonable (r = 0.3?0.5) to non-existent climate signal. While showing a strong high-frequency response, older/larger trees expressed the weakest overall temperature signal. Although random sampling yielded the most consistent climate signal in all sub-chronologies, the outcome was still sub-optimal. Alternative strategies to optimize the climate signal, including very high replication and principal components analysis, were also unable to minimize this disturbance bias and produce chronologies adequately representing climatic trends, indicating that larger scale disturbances can produce synchronous pervasive disturbance trends that affect a large part of a sampled population. The Curve Intervention Detection (CID) method, used to identify and reduce the influence of disturbance trends in the RW chronologies, considerably improved climate signal representation (from r = 0.28 before correction to r = 0.41 after correction for the full 760 sample chronology over 1909?2009) and represents a potentially important new approach for assessing disturbance impacts on RW chronologies. Blue intensity (BI) also shows promise as a climatically more sensitive variable which, unlike RW, does not appear significantly affected by disturbance. We recommend that studies utilizing RW chronologies to investigate medium- to long-term climatic trends also assess disturbance impact on those series.PostprintPeer reviewe

Jet stream position explains regional anomalies in European beech forest productivity and tree growth.

The mechanistic pathways connecting ocean-atmosphere variability and terrestrial productivity are well-established theoretically, but remain challenging to quantify empirically. Such quantification will greatly improve the assessment and prediction of changes in terrestrial carbon sequestration in response to dynamically induced climatic extremes. The jet stream latitude (JSL) over the North Atlantic-European domain provides a synthetic and robust physical framework that integrates climate variability not accounted for by atmospheric circulation patterns alone. Surface climate impacts of north-south summer JSL displacements are not uniform across Europe, but rather create a northwestern-southeastern dipole in forest productivity and radial-growth anomalies. Summer JSL variability over the eastern North Atlantic-European domain (5-40E) exerts the strongest impact on European beech, inducing anomalies of up to 30% in modelled gross primary productivity and 50% in radial tree growth. The net effects of JSL movements on terrestrial carbon fluxes depend on forest density, carbon stocks, and productivity imbalances across biogeographic regions

Naturalitatea pădurii: concepte, caracteristici și implicații asupra conservării [Forest naturalness: concepts, characteristics and implications for conservation]

The paper review the naturalness related concepts, with a special emphasis on forests, and also their implications on forest conservation. Beside naturalness, key aspects of wild(er)ness, ecosystem integrity, ecosystem health, forest quality and authenticity are disscussed. The main approaches on forest naturalness are presented, including the basic (minimum) naturalness requests, the shortcomings of associating high extreme naturalness levels (virgin, pristine) to forests, or the necessity to consider the temporal component of naturalness (e.g. the forest history). In the section of conservation issues is presented a brief summary of the most important regional/world based statistics of high naturalness forests, including practical reccomendations regarding their size and weight at landscape scale

Evaluarea naturalității și a structurii arboretelor în rezervațiile Pădurea Voievodeasa și Codrul Secular Loben din Obcinile Bucovinei [Evaluation of stand naturalness and structure in forest reserves Pădurea Voievodeasa and Codrul Secular Loben from Obcinele Bucovinei]

The paper presents the results of a naturalness assessments, and also of the first inventory in two newly established forest reserves (Voievodeasa and Loben) from North of Romanian Eastern Carpathians. The evaluation of naturalness used the historical data concerning the wood extraction, as were recorded in the forest management plans. In selected stands of higher local naturalness was further conducted an inventory, following the methodology recommended by COST E4 and based on a systematic grid with circular plots of 500 m2 . Expected, the results showed that extraction impacted the structural characteristics of stands, esspecially the standing/downing trees volume. The comparison of structural data resulted from inventory (density and volume of both alive and dead standing trees and coarse woody debris) with local references - “virgin“ forests located about 40 km apart of the forest reserves under study - suggested a degree of correspondence between 20-40%. The same data, compared with published information available from mixed forest of beech-fir-spruce accross temperate zone of Europe confirmed the departure of selected stands from the references of naturalness and their distinct grouping, compared with other forest reserves

Germinația semințelor de molid pe substraturi cu diferite nivele de fitotoxicitate: un studiu de caz pentru exploatarea Călimani [Germination of Norway spruce seeds on substrates with different levels of toxicity: a case study for the Călimani dump]

The knowledge of the particularities of seeds germination on different substrat types is important, especially from the point of vue of ecological restoration, e.g. of the dumps. The paper presents the results of the Norway spruce seeds germination on different substrates (10 variants: 9 + Control) from an area of a surface mining sulfur (Călimani) from the North of Eastern Carpathians. The germination tests indicated, in an expected way, that the only substrate which significantly influence the germination (at 7, 10 and 15 days, respectively) was the sulphur, in case of the other the differences being non-significant. The minimum beard length values were recorded on sulphur substrate, while the best on the ‘forest soil’ variant. The germination threshold (2 mm) was reached after 3-5 days, and the phytotoxicity effect was observed after 10 days. Regarding the time length of the germination phase, the most favourable (shortest) was the ‘Hummus’ variant. The correlation analysis indicated that if the germination period is short, then the other phases will be prolonged, with larger percent of germination and relative beard length. In an expected way, the fatal effect of the ‘Sulphur’ substrate is different than all the others, starting with the 11th day of germination. Based on the obtained results, for the area were delineated three domains of relative toxicity: A - toxic (without life conditions), B - neutral (inhibition of the physiological processes) and C - favourable (proper for a plant development), which were mapped for further practical use

Diversitatea speciilor de păsări în culturi energetice de plop cu ciclu scurt de producţie: o comparație cu alte categorii de folosinţă a terenurilor [Bird species diversity in poplar plantations: a comparison with different land use categories]

The energy poplar plantations are in expansion in the north-eastern Romania, so the aim of our study was to investigate the influence of these plantations on avian diversity. We carried out bird counts in two experimental blocks of 10 ha, where semi-natural forest vegetation, pastures, poplar plantations and agricultural land live in similar surface areas. The bird richness and abundance are the highest in forest vegetation, followed by agricultural lands, pastures and poplar plantations; the last ones are used by birds only for foraging, not for nesting and breeding. The landscape parameter analysis reveals for now a high variability due to relatively small size patches with different land uses, with complex edges and adequate connectivity, offering proper conditions for diverse bird species. The trend of extending the agricultural monocultures (especially colza) and poplar plantations observed in the last years will have a negative impact on local bird communities. If this going to be the case, in order to soften this effect, it is advisable to avoid large areas with simple edges of poplar or agricultural plantations, to maintain the hedgerows alongside plantations and the areas with different land use to alternate in space