Long term dynamics in Central European old growth spruce - fir - beech forests: A case study at Rothwald, Austria
Abstract
The old-growth forest Rothwald provides an exceptional opportunity to advance the understanding of forest dynamics and to test the applicability of current theories on stand dynamics for Central European forests. Three bodies of theories on forest dynamics will be addressed and the underlying hypotheses tested: (1) interspecific differences in the response to different disturbance regimes are driving forest stand dynamics (2) spatial and temporal partitioning and / or competition/colonisation trade off are the mechanisms explaining coexistence of the predominant species and are determining the response to different disturbance regimes and (3) knowledge of spatio-temporal development of forest stands can be used as a baseline for predicting future stand development. Hypothesis 1 will be studied by: (i) Characterisation and comparison of vegetation development after coarse - and fine scale disturbances (ii) assessment of the spatial and temporal variability of gaps and gap sizes using a time series of aerial photographs covering about 60 years and (iii) reconstruction of the disturbance history using dendroecological methods combined with demographic parameters on permanent sample plots. Hypothesis 2 will be tested using a detailed study of regeneration ecology including effects of differential light levels, snow depth and duration, seedbeds, and competition in intensive plots. Existence of competition/colonization trade off will be tested by comparing the spatial pattern and association of canopy trees with literature data of seed dispersal. The presence and importance of temporal partitioning between the predominant species will be examined by characterizing different storage potentials of the tree species and the variations in resources over time through disturbance or climate fluctuation using dendroecological methods. Spatio-temporal development will be studied by analysis of spatial point patterns using data from repeated recordings of permanent sample plots.
keywords forest dynamics spruce-fir-beech forest dendroecology coexistence disturbance regime
Publikationen
Ecological information from spatial patterns of plants: insights from point process theory
Autoren: Law, R; Illian, J; Burslem, DFRP; Gratzer, G; Gunatilleke, CVS; Gunatilleke, IAUN Jahr: 2009
Journal articles
Mountain Forests in a Changing World Realising values, addressing challenges
Autoren: Martin F. Price, Georg Gratzer, Lalisa Alemayehu Duguma, Thomas Kohler, Daniel Maselli, Rosalaura Romeo Jahr: 2011
Editorial
Neighbourhood dynamics of gaps in an old-growth beech mountain forest in Central Europe
Autoren: Georg Gratzer, Patrick Brown, Bernhard Splechtna, Brigitte Rudel Jahr: 2013
Conference & Workshop proceedings, paper, abstract
Project staff
Georg Gratzer
Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.nat.techn. Georg Gratzer
georg.gratzer@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-91215
Project Leader
01.11.2000 - 31.03.2004