Katarina Cufar

University of Ljubljana · Biotechnical Faculty

Interdisciplinary research on the pile-dwellings in the Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, has been carried out, with brief interruptions, since their discovery in 1875. Since 1995 these efforts have been coordinated by the Institute of Archaeology of the ZRC SAZU. Systematic excavations and interdisciplinary research were carried out on prehistoric pile...

With ongoing global warming, increasing water deficits promote physiological stress on forest ecosystems with negative impacts on tree growth, vitality, and survival. How individual tree species will react to increased drought stress is therefore a key research question to address for carbon accounting and the development of climate change mitigati...

As major terrestrial carbon sinks, forests play an important role in mitigating climate change. The relationship between the seasonal uptake of carbon and its allocation to woody biomass remains poorly understood, leaving a significant gap in our capacity to predict carbon sequestration by forests. Here, we compare the intra-annual dynamics of carb...

The excavations on Savska cesta (street) 10 in Kranj in 2010 revealed three prehistoric occupation/building phases. In addition to rich ceramic finds, remains of wooden buildings were discovered in each of the phases. Pieces of wooden posts belonging to two buildings were recovered from four postholes, allowing their dendrochronological analysis an...

The future performance of the widely abundant European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) across its ecological amplitude is uncertain. Although beech is considered drought-sensitive and thus negatively affected by drought events, scientific evidence indicating increasing drought vulnerability under climate change on a cross-regional scale remains elusive....

Wood growth is key to understanding the feedback of forest ecosystems to the ongoing climate warming. An increase in spatial synchrony (i.e., coincident changes in distant populations) of spring phenology is one of the most prominent climate responses of forest trees. However, whether temperature variability contributes to an increase in the spatia...

Using a unique 8-year data set (2010–2017) of phloem data, we studied the effect of temperature and precipitation on the phloem anatomy (conduit area, widths of ring, early and late phloem) and xylem-ring width in two coexisting temperate tree species, Picea abies and Fagus sylvatica, from three contrasting European temperate forest sites. Histomet...

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Walter Liese (1926-2023) was a leading scientist, teacher, mentor, director, leader, president of IUFRO, multiple honorary doctor and ambassador of science in the forestry and wood science community. After his BSc and PhD in forestry he pioneered and carried out outstanding work in the field of electron microscopy and the...

Urška Kovačič received the Award for the Associates of the University of Ljubljana

15th Meeting of the Alumni Club of the Departmentof Wood Science and Technology BF UL

To enhance our understanding of forest carbon sequestration, climate change mitigation and drought impact on forest ecosystems, the availability of high-resolution annual forest growth maps based on tree-ring width (TRW) would provide a significant advancement to the field. Site-specific characteristics, which can be approximated by high-resolution...

Multiple dimensions of time are omnipresent in wood and in crafts. Crafts are intertwined with historical time, time of learning and experience, with rhythm and marks of the craftsperson’s action, with time and meaning of work, with time perceived and the perception of the material. Biological and geophysical time is inscribed in the wood of the tr...

The present study focuses on the cambium and the anatomy of secondary tissues (xylem – wood and phloem) of Siberian poplar (Populus sibirica) and Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) grown in a plantation in the semi-arid Mongolian steppe. Stem and root microcores from both species were collected and subsequently processed to obtain cross-sections for light...

It is assumed that people practiced woodland management, i.e., coppicing and pollarding, in prehistory, but details are poorly known. This study aims for a better understanding of woodland exploitation through time in the wetland basin of the Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, from 3700–2400 BCE. To do so, uncarbonized, waterlogged wood from 16 Eneolithi...

We present the results of interdisciplinary research on the newly discovered pile-dwelling site Verd on the western edge of Ljubljansko barje. Decisive for the age determination of the site were the results of dendrochronological investigations and radiocarbon dating of wood using the wiggle-matching method. The estimated felling date of trees for...

Severe droughts limit tree growth and forest productivity worldwide, a phenomenon which is expected to aggravate over the next decades. However, how drought intensity and climatic conditions before and after drought events modulate tree growth resilience remains unclear, especially when considering the range-wide phenotypic variability of a tree sp...

Intra-Annual Density Fluctuations (IADFs) are an important wood functional trait that determine trees’ ability to adapt to climatic changes. Here, we use a large tree-ring database of 11 species from 89 sites across eight European countries, covering a climatic gradient from the Mediterranean to northern Europe, to analyze how climate variations dr...

It is assumed that people practiced woodland management, i.e., coppicing and pollarding, in prehistory, but details are poorly known. This study aims for a better understanding of woodland exploitation through time in the wetland basin of the Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, from 3700-2400 BCE (Before Common Era). To do so, uncarbonized, waterlogged wo...

The African collection of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum (SEM) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, holds objects of everyday life from the Bambuti people from the Ituri forest, in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The items were collected by the anthropologist Paul Joachim Schebesta, possibly during his expeditions around 1930. Th...

Despite growing interest in predicting plant phenological shifts, advanced spring phenology by global climate change remains debated. Evidence documenting either small or large advancement of spring phenology to rising temperature over the spatio-temporal scales implies a potential existence of a thermal threshold in the responses of forests to glo...

In the future, climate change is expected to affect the spatial distribution of most tree species in Europe. The European beech (Fagus sylvatica), a drought-sensitive tree species, is currently distributed throughout Europe, where it is an ecologically and economically important species. In Slovenia, the European beech represents 33% of the growing...

Na 16 koliščih na Ljubljanskem barju v Sloveniji je bilo med leti 1995 in 2021 z arheološkimi izkopavanji zbranih več kot 8.800 vzorcev z vodo napojenega arheološkega lesa. Večina vzorcev je bilo odvzetih iz pilotov, zabitih v zemljo, na katerih so bila zgrajena bivališča. Približno 20 % vzorcev je bilo iz lesa hrasta (Quercus sp.) in jesena (Fraxi...

We present a technical note that supplements published procedures on optimal sample preparation for performing wood and phloem formation analyses. Before beginning sampling, it is important to learn about the characteristics of the tree or shrub species to be investigated. Some tips are given how to use the Trephor tool in the best way, how to remo...

The dendrochronological climate signal of Norway spruce (Picea abies), European larch (Larix decidua), and European beech (Fagus sylvatica), among other species, depends on altitude, therefore we have to collect dendrochronological data systematically for each species along altitude gradients. To this end, we established local tree-ring chronologie...

We examined valuable log assortments of Norway spruce (Picea abies) from a traditional auction in Slovenia where spruce growth on many sites is affected by climate change. From 6620 logs, we selected 817 that obtained the highest prices. Factors including log dimensions and geometry, tree-ring characteristics, quality grades according to the standa...

The growth of past, present, and future forests was, is and will be affected by climate variability. This multifaceted relationship has been assessed in several regional studies, but spatially resolved, large-scale analyses are largely missing so far. Here we estimate recent changes in growth of 5800 beech trees ( Fagus sylvatica L.) from 324 sites...

On November 10th 2021, Dieter Eckstein passed away at age 82. Born and raised as a forester’s child, his entire life was connected to trees and wood. He grew up to become a dedicated scientist and teacher. His legacy includes both his own considerable research accomplishments as well as his founding of a growing network of tree biologists and wood...

Waterlogged archaeological wood (WAW), approximately 4500 years old, from the prehistoric pile-dwelling settlement at Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We propose a simplified protocol for sample preparation and the SEM technique for the study of highly degraded WAW of Quercus, Faxinus, Acer, Salix and...

Our understanding of wood anatomy and radial growth in tree roots remains very incomplete, particularly with respect to how ecological factors affect root growth at a relatively small spatial scale, i.e., within a single root system. Here, we compared root growth with and without trampling exposure on a hiking trail. We conducted a quantitative ana...

Z industrijo 4.0 vstopamo v digitalno dobo, kjer se bodo tudi v lesnopredelovalnih podjetjih bistveno spremenile zahteve po znanjih in kompetencah zaposlenih. To vpliva tudi na izobraževanje na področju lesarstva. Cilj raziskave je bil ugotoviti, kateri načini poučevanja in učenja najbolj motivirajo predstavnike generacij Y in Z, na različnih nivoj...

We present the results of a dendrochronological study and radiocarbon dating of the wooden piles of the bridge over the Drava River in Ptuj. The piles, together with stone elements (a fragment of an imperial building inscription and parts of the architectural decoration) were retrieved from the riverbed in 1913 and are now in the Regional Museum Pt...

Prof. Dr. Dieter Eckstein (1939-2021) was a leading scientist, teacher, mentor, leader, promoter and motivator in the field of dendrochronology and wood biology. After graduating in wood science and receiving a PhD in dendrochronology, he was professor of wood biology at the University of Hamburg. From 1995-2004, he was Director of the Department o...

The monitoring of xylogenesis makes it possible to follow tree growth responses to stress factors in real-time, by observing the course of wood cell division and differentiation. Proper microscopy techniques are of key importance to exactly identify the xylem cells during the different phases of differentiation. We aimed to apply epifluorescence mi...

Woodland management, i.e. coppicing and pollarding, is regularly suggested to have taken place in Europe from the Mesolithic or at least the Neolithic onwards. Is this actually the case? This study focuses on prehistoric pile dwellings in the Ljubljansko barje (Ger. das Laibacher Moor), Slovenia, dating to the Eneolithic period, between 3700 and 24...

We present a new publicly available daily gridded dataset of maximum and minimum temperature and precipitation data covering the whole territory of Slovenia from 1950 to 2018. It represents the great variability of climate at the crossroads between the Mediterranean, Alpine and continental climatic regimes with altitudes between 0–2864 m a.s.l. We...

We present a new publicly available daily gridded dataset of maximum and minimum temperature and precipitation data covering the whole territory of Slovenia from 1950 to 2018. It represents the great variability of climate at the crossroads between the Mediterranean, Alpine and continental climatic regimes with altitudes between 0-2864 m a.s.l. We...

Baze podatkov o nastajanju lesa in floema so pomembne za razumevanje vpliva podnebnih sprememb in izrednih vremenskih dogodkov na vrstno sestavo, vitalnost dreves, produkcijo ter kakovost lesa v slovenskih gozdovih. V tem članku predstavljamo najnovejše rezultate o debelinski rasti navadne smreke (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) z dveh rastišč v Sloveniji...

Climate change will affect radial growth patterns of trees, which will result in different forest productivity, wood properties, and timber quality. While many studies have been published on xylem phenology and anatomy lately, little is known about the phenology of earlywood and latewood formation, also in relation to cambial phenology. Even less i...

Quercus ilex L. dieback has been recently reported at numerous Mediterranean sites. Wood and phloem formation dynamics and tree-ring series of anatomical traits can be used to evaluate growth conditions of trees. We monitored cambial activity in Q. ilex trees growing at a site in southern Italy in order to assess how xylem and phloem production are...

We present a new publicly available daily gridded dataset of maximum and minimum temperature and precipitation data covering the whole territory of Slovenia from 1950 to 2018. It represents the great variability of climate at the crossroads between the Mediterranean, Alpine and continental climatic regimes with altitudes between 0–2864 m a.s.l. We...

Izvleček Abstract: Wood identification of barbecue charcoal from commercial packages of three retailers (B1, B2, B3) in Slovenia and Croatia was performed with help of Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM). CLSM enabled us to image key identification features of charcoal wood that were compared with light micrographs of wood from the reference...

Temporal variability of leaf senescence (autumn phenology) was observed in 2020 in 11 European beech (Fagus sylvatica) trees in Tivoli, Rožnik and Šišenski hrib Landscape Park in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and also observed for spring phenology in the same year. General leaf colouring, BBCH94, occurred between 19 and 24 October 2020, with lower inter-ind...

In their Letter, Elmendorf and Ettinger (1) question the dominant role of photoperiod in driving secondary growth resumption (hereafter referred to as xylem formation onset) of the Northern Hemisphere conifers, recently reported by Huang et al. (2). Their opinions are grounded on the following three aspects, including 1) the seasonality of the phot...

The impact of hiking in forested areas is one of the main factors affecting the condition of tree growth along hiking trails. Trampling causes common exposure of roots and quantification of the human impact on root radial growth and wood anatomy requires careful assessment. To accurately identify the radial growth changes in Pinus sylvestris roots,...

Significance Forest trees can live for hundreds to thousands of years, and they play a critical role in mitigating global warming by fixing approximately 15% of anthropogenic CO 2 emissions annually by wood formation. However, the environmental factors triggering wood formation onset in springtime and the cellular mechanisms underlying this onset r...

It is often presumed that woodland management, i.e. pollarding and coppicing, was practised in prehistory, but the precise beginning and the details of such practices in the past are unknown. This is because, in contrast to historical times, from which written and iconographic sources are available, prehistoric archaeological sites rarely yield dir...

In spring of 2020 we observed leaf phenology in mature European beech (Fagus sylvatica) trees in Tivoli, Rožnik and Šišenski hrib Landscape Park in Ljubljana, Slovenia (46.05°N, 14.49°E, 310 m a. s. l.). A group of 11 trees was selected for daily monitoring of leaf development. We recorded seven phases from dormant buds, through leaf unfolding till...

Poslikane kmečke skrinje so pomemben del zbirk muzejskih predmetov ljudske umetnosti alpskega prostora. V Gorenjskem muzeju Kranj smo pregledali nad 30 in dendrokronološko raziskali 18 skrinj iz lesa iglavcev, pretežno navadne smreke (Picea abies). Na odsekih radialnih desk pokrovov in stranic skrinj smo posneli visoko ločljive fotografije za merje...

Prof. Dr. Fritz Hans Schweingruber (29 February 1936 – 7 January 2020) was a key wood anatomist and dendrochronologist, teacher and organiser of summer field schools, who established an extensive network of scientists, wrote key books, contributed to the construction of publicly accessible databases, popularised and revealed unimaginable possibilit...

Climate change is predicted to affect tree growth due to increased frequency and intensity of extreme events such as ice storms, droughts and heatwaves. Yet, there is still a lot of uncertainty on how trees respond to an increase in frequency of extreme events. Use of both ground-based wood increment (i.e. ring width) and remotely sensed data (i.e....

Severe droughts have the potential to reduce forest productivity and trigger tree mortality. Most trees face several drought events during their life and therefore resilience to dry conditions may be crucial to long-term survival. We assessed how growth resilience to severe droughts, including its components resistance and recovery, is related to t...

Recent studies on the seasonal dynamics of secondary tissue formation in Mediterranean trees have shown that xylogenesis depends on species and site conditions, but many questions still remain open. On the other side of the cambium, even less information is available about phloem structure and timing of its formation. We analysed intra-annual phloe...

Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research sp...

We used the Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope(CLSM) Olympus LEXT OLS5000for non-destructiveobservation and image analysis of wood anatomytraitsin growth layers of treespecies fromdifferent climatic zones. In European beech (Fagus sylvatica),where tree rings can generally be recognised, we discuss the changes in tree-ring structure due to adverse e...

Exact wood identification is usually based on observation of wood features under the microscope. For this, we have to take a sample of the wood from the object and cut thin slides, possibly of all three anatomical sections. Such destructive sampling is often not possible on valuable historical objects, and therefore there is a need for non-destruct...

Determining the effect of a changing climate on tree growth will ultimately depend on our understanding of wood formation processes and how they can be affected by environmental conditions. In this context, monitoring intra-annual radial growth with high temporal resolution through point dendrometers has often been used. Another widespread approach...

Recent activities of international interdisciplinary community under COST action Wood Musick, showed an increased interest for dendrochronology, which can be applied on resonance boards of string instruments made of Norway spruce (Picea abies). We will present some main questions of wood music and tree‑ring communities, and possible answers. Wood m...

Three gridded datasets containing interpolated daily and monthly precipitation and temperature values over the past five decades were tested against four tree-ring chronologies of oak (Quercus robur and Q. petraea). The objective of this research was to investigate the climate-growth relationship and whether the Pearson’s product-moment correlation...

During archaeological excavations on wet sites in the area of the ancient Roman Nauportus (today’s Vrhnika, Slovenia) in 2005, preserved parts of various wooden structures were discovered. We collected and investigated almost 500 samples of wood from these. Half of the samples were silver fir (Abies alba) and oak (Quercus sp.). In particular, we fo...