Silviculture - Science topic

You could examine invasive pest diversity in plant ecosystems and compare between different locations :)

Thomas Fungenzi i guess the attached document might be of your help

Manmohan J. Dobriyal i found one paper which might be of help to you

The clear-felling system and the continuous cover system

Really nice, interested and important question.

Keep it up !

I work on Gaps and structure in Stands and regeneration in endemic and exotic forest species and treatment about thinning. The global warming and the effect on forests are new subjects on silviculture .

May be.

You can make a research area innovative for you. It all depends on the approach you want to give to your subject.

IPM is good a idea to manage the forest pests.

There are at least three papers that provide lists of plants differing in shade tolerance and an in depth look at the basis of shade tolerance that you should find useful. These are Pang, K. et. al. 2019 Response of legumes and grasses to non, moderate, and dense shade in Missouri, USA. I Forage yield and its species-level plasticity and II. Forage quality and its species-level plasticity in Agroforestry Systems 93 pages 11-24 and pages 25-38 and Semchenko, M. et al. 2012. Positive effect of shade on plant growth: amelioration of stress or active regulation of growth rate? J. Ecol. 100 pages 459-466. The DOI numbers are 10.1007/s10457-017-0067-8, 10.1007/s10457-017-0068-7, and 10.1111/j.1365-2745.2011.01936.x.

The type of field data collected will depend on the purpose of the study. Screening studies are typically designed to test the effects of a treatment(s) on crop survival and growth or control of a competitor species. Operational comparison studies may include crop, vegetation, soils, carbon and other environmental variables. Operational monitoring studies involve monitoring forest operations. A research could monitor a large number of variables, but politics, money and time normally constrain the study. Thus, we'll need more information about not only the forest types being studied, but also the purpose of the field studies.

Yes! Please take a look at the following links.

I had empirically modeled the heartwood volume, VH, of trees by using DBH and VH determined from trees of different sizes and using stem analysis to determine VH. The relationship is of course different between the species of trees and it seems age also describes an important part of the VH variability. Try the empirical method and the conclusions you would most likely come up with are: (i) open the forest a bit to let desirable trees grow in DBH, (ii) for large old trees the gain in AVH/AT is quite small so do not wait anymore to harvest, and (iii) for some species, for young trees improve site conditions to reduce the SW/HW (SW= softwood; HD=heartwood) ratio. Althoug for other tree species, the viceversa may be true.

Hope these comments would improve your understanding on heartwood formation.

Kind Regards

Sincerely

Jose Navar, Ph.D

Thanks H. Kumar. what about wood work ability of the species.

Thanks a lot sir for your valuable answers.....

You ask, " How to regulate the conservation with siviculture of economic and social principles"?

I believe the answer is classic Einstein theory, 'one can't solve a problem with the same thinking that created it'.

The illusion of 'domination and control' over nature has lead us down a number of 'dead end' paths and persists in the context of your question.

Industrial forestry is the contemporary manifestation of 'killing the buffalo for it's tongue'., with the same degrees of mass wasting and genocide that follows. The evidence is clear. Short booms followed by protracted busts every time. We've overlaid the incessant growth, extractive model not understanding it manifests into cancer whether physically or socially, no exceptions. Tweaks to this model will have limited benefits. We need a new way of thinking.

A new way based in Nature as the Master. WHERE everything our 'management' attempts to do is emulating Natures cycles and bounty. With small 'takings' of trees, locally processing and locally manufacturing into finished products.

Leaving future generations an environmental inherence that has value and not just liabilities. If we love our children we will think more about them than our short term profits.

Thank you for sharing your photos!! It is very nice color. I hope you will be able to propagate this plant in one way or another. I am convinced it would be a success for home gardens and municipal green areas.

Estimada Mariza Fernanda;

Por principio, muchas gracias por tu interés en nuestro proyecto, con relación a tu pregunta una respuesta muy breve sería que NO en realidad, y esto básicamente por tres razones fundalmentales: 1) porque su densidad (inluyendo su diversidad) no es muy alta en la zona donde llevamos a cabo este proyecto, 2) otra de las razones es porque no son elementos que compiten con el estrato arboreo a lo largo del periodo de vida de estos úlitmos y 3) porque tampoco producen daños fisicos o mecánicos al arbolado de tal manera que reduzca sifnificativamente el valor comercial de la madera.

Espero lo anterior te sea de utilidad.

Sinceramente;

Miguel Olvera Vargas

I am unsure if I can find the publication, but you might try an internet search on 'silvipasture', a practice that combines low density forestry of about 30-50 sq feet basal area of pine or other suitable forest type with pasture.  Prescribed fire helps to maintain the grassy ground cover, and still have some ability for forest management benefits.  Pine trees use more water than hardwoods or grasslands, so recognize this can be an issue in some climates to keep the forest density low or seek species with lower water usage.  I suppose if you know of some suitable fruit trees that are acceptable for cattle, they may also provide some wildlife or bird habitat diversity to consider if wildlife viewing, other farming produce or hunting were interests.

Bonsoir,j'aimerais faire partir du projet pour terminer mon cycle doctorat 

If this is the case, please look into the initial  health of the planting material and the re-planting  sites( it could be allelopathic effect of previous cycle ) ,besides climatic factors as well..

I really appreciate the Klemen's answer. It depends highly on the tree species and the wood quality is not a matter of the speed of growth in all species.

The genetic homogenity of the plants is also very important. It's not the same to plant a clone or a controlled pollinated family than planting a mix of non-selected open pollinated families. The more homogeneus the material is the larger space you must use to avoid the effect of competition.

On the other hand, if the genetic material is quite heteregeneus we obtain differents behaviours: dominant, co-dominant and dominant and we should plant shorter spacement to obtain some results.

If the coppice age could be identified through analyzing historical data or using a proxy variable that could be linked to age (height, or DAP), I think that root age could identified using isotope (carbon 14).

Dear Suresh, if you are interested in water management (as a crucial part within natural resources management) please follow these links, maybe it could help you:

Best regards

Please check the pdf attachments and the links given below.

The volume of tree  which frequently figure as proxy variable for biomass is calculated by the formula d²h

where d is diameter of tree at breast height and h is the height of tree species.

Hi Wayne, I'dbe very interested in this. I've been working on how the composition of forest floor vegetation (including lichens) can linked to long-term (centuries to millennia) cycliong of SOC. Using something of a trait-base would be interesting. I also have samples which I will use for CN(P) etc, btu if anything is of interest, let me know. cheers, rob

Please contact Dr. Florin Dinulica for such research topics. Here are some details:

He is conducting wood research in Romania.

Best regards,

Alexandru

Hello Ardalan,

Yes it happens. Age groups of a particular species have been made by many researchers using the spectral responses of vegetation from both ground and airborne sensors. This becomes possible only due to differences in spectral responses. LAI plays an important role in this phenomenon. La Porta N publications are worth to study. 

Hi again,

Surely someone is looking at  economy-production-environmental issues.   I have not bumped into it myself, perhaps cuz in the Northeast US where I work fertilizing is uncommon.

Find Tappeiner, et al, Silviculture and ecology in western US forests.  Oregon State Univ Press, 2007.  There is a section on fertilization.  Will give yo a place to start.

Get in touch w. them for more advice, and contact Dan Richter at Duke University-- I bet he will be well informed on these issues.

Years ago a scientist named George Bengston did a short paper where he estimated the nutrient losses in removing tops,  in southern pine, and then figured out what it would cost to replace them by fertilizing. Ingenious, and convincing.  It was not trivial.  As a first step you need not go farther than this.  Plainly results will be site-specific.  This probably connects to low-impact harvesting as leaving more biomass behind moderates nutrient losses.  

IN some temperate soils, with long enough rotations, nutrient losses are replaced by weathering.  Not likely in many tropical soils. 

Here is where the area being studied matters.  The need for fertilizer for production,  and dynamics of its flow to the environment, will differ between temperate,  high altitude, and lowland tropical situations.  

Would seem that just assessing the production/financial benefit of fertilizing is one place to begin -- if it's not worth doing,  then need not pursue environmental issues further.

Nest  LCI

Hi,

You can find the review I made for radiata pine on page 182 of 'Sustainable Management of radiata pine plantations' FAO forestry paper 170'.  It is available on-line or can be downloaded through my Research Gate  site. In Table 10.2 the data is presented on  a mean annual basis, with the 'Other inputs' line being rainfall for P and cations.

Although there are many variables involved, stem-only harvesting is usually OK in the long term on many sites. Weathering rates, erosion, leaching losses and N fixation etc, as well as rainfall needs to be considered. Weathering is often more important than rainfall inputs for P and cations.

Some researchers have also developed models that can be run to see if there are trends over several rotations, but of course they are only so good as the data used to develop them and assumptions made. 

Don

Dear Piotre Sewarniak

In my opinion identification of ring width in hornbeam is very hard; I work in Iran but I couldn't create basic chronological report for a long term period for hornbean whereas I gotten cores from Carpinus betulus. My experiment in Caspian forests in harvested and non-harvested sites in the north forest of Iran show that regeneration of hornbeam under the beech sites in high elevation was increased.

Hi Anya!

As far as I am concerned, this subject, tree health and it's defence against pest or other environmental stress, directly related to environmental or ecological factors including both abiotic and biotic factors affecting tree, forest and also whole plant community in terms of health and resistivity to any natural diseases.

May be there is indirectly a relation between tree growth and its defence but growing fast or not in trees  directly related to physiological and anatomical features under the same ecological condition.

So clearly, main answer is: Under the same ecological condition, we can not only say that fast growing trees healthier than the others. Its depend on ecological conditions.

SCENARIO 1: At general, Poplar is fast growing tree and it comsumes and needs more water than Oak species. So, If they grow in dry and semi dry condition, Poplar probably will have less resistivity than Oak. And this condition will be affect Poplar' physiological properties and finally it will be less resistivity to pest and the other env. stress. than oak. We can make an inference that.

SCENARIO 2: But, in humid contidion, we can not say that Poplar will be healtier than Oak. Can we?

Its one of the my little opinion:)

Good luck with your study.

Hi Ian

In Denmark the recommendation is to harvest infected trees, but there seem to be some variation in at least the speed with which individual trees decline. Like in France, there are wet areas where the closest substitutes are not really attractive (red alder e.g.), so in many cases forest owners go easy rather than clean and replace. Danish researchers are working hard to find more resistant genotypes, e.g.

cheers /Bo

There are many examples where species choice turned out to be wrong (not only provenance choice): Two more examples with references from literature:

Germany; Belgium, Hungary & other states in Europe: introduction of Prunus serotina (now an invasive species):

Annighöfer, P.; Mölder, I.; Zerbe, S.; Kawaletz, H.; Terwei, A.; Ammer, C. 2012a. Biomass functions for the two alien tree species Prunus serotina Ehrh. and Robinia pseudoacacia L. in floodplain forests of Northern Italy. European Journal of Forest Research 131, 1619–1635.

Annighöfer, P.; Schall, P.; Kawaletz, H.; Mölder, I.; Terwei, A.; Zerbe, S.; Ammer, C. 2012b. Vegetative growth response of black cherry (Prunus serotina) to different mechanical control methods in a biosphere reserve. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 42, 2037 – 2051

Godefroid, S.; Phartyal, S.S.; Weyembergh, G.; Koedam, N. 2005. Ecological factors controlling the abundance of non-native invasive black cherry (Prunus serotina) in decidous forest understory in Belgium. Forest Ecology and Management 210, 91 – 105

Meerschaut, D. van der; Lust, N. 1997. Comparison of mechanical, biological and chemical methods for controlling Black cherry (Prunus serotina) in Flanders (Belgium). Silva Gandavensis, 90 – 109 

Juhász, M. 2008. Black cherry (Prunus serotina Ehrh.) . In: Botta-Dukát, Z.; Balogh, L. (eds.): The most important invasive plants in Hungary. Institute of Ecology and Botany, Hungarian Academy of Science, Vácrátót, 77 – 84

Sweden: Pinus contorta (as mentionned by Anders in an earlier posting):

ANDERSSON, B.; ENGELMARK, O.; ROSVALL, O.; SJÖBERG, K. (2001): Ecological effects of forestry with introduced lodgepole pine in Sweden. Forest Ecology and Management, 141: 1-1.

ENGELMARK, O.; SJÖBERG, K.; ANDERSSON, B.; ROSVALL, O.; AGREN, G. I.; BAKER, W. L.; BARKLUND, P.; BJÖRKMAN, C.; DESPAIN, D. G.; ELFVING, B.; ENNOS, R. A.; KARLMAN, M.; KNECHT, M. F.; KNIGHT, D. H.; LEDGARD, N. J.; LINDELOW, A.; NILSSON, C.; PETERKEN, G. F.; SÖRLIN, S.; SYKES, M. T. (2001): Ecological effects and management aspects of an exotic tree species: the case of lodgepole pine in Sweden. Forest Ecology and Management, 141: 3-13.

Unfortunately the list is long - just two examples here. However, such hindsight often comes very late/ which is typical for species choice in forest ecosystems!

Does this help?

Sebastian

Most certainly yes; SEM can be applied to any natural phenomena, to detect causal effects. There is in fact a book written by James Grace with applications from forestry and related fields, see e.g. his ch. 1 example concluding: "the biggest impact on

changes in spurge density was from self thinning, with A. lacertosa having a

modest effect on spurge and A. nigriscutis having no impact at all." (p. 33); or 'Relating soil properties to plant growth' (p. 110).

Grace, J. B. (2006). Structural equation modeling and natural systems: Cambridge University Press.

Grace, J. B. (1999). The factors controlling species density in herbaceous plant

communities: an assessment. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics,

2, 1–28.

Grace, J. B. (2001). The roles of community biomass and species pools in the regulation of plant diversity. Oikos, 92, 191–207.

[THIS IS A SEM CLASSIC] Grace, J. B. (2003a). Comparing groups using structural equations. chapter 11, pp. 281–296. In: B. H. Pugesek, A. Tomer, & A. von Eye (eds.). Structural Equation

Modeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grace, J. B. (2003b). Examining the relationship between environmental variables and ordination axes using latent variables and structural equation modeling. chapter

7, pp. 171–193. In: B. H. Pugesek, A. Tomer, & A. von Eye (eds.). Structural

Equation Modeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Grace, J. B. & Guntenspergen, G. R. (1999). The effects of landscape position on

plant species density: evidence of past environmental effects in a coastal wetland.

Ecoscience, 6, 381–391.

Grace, J. B.&Jutila, H. (1999). The relationship between species density and community biomass in grazed and ungrazed coastal meadows. Oikos, 85, 398–408.

Grace, J. B. & Keeley, J. E. (2006). A structural equation model analysis of postfire

plant diversity in California shrublands. Ecological Applications, 16, 503–514.

Grace, J. B. & Pugesek, B. (1997). A structural equation model of plant species richness and its application to a coastal wetland. American Naturalist, 149, 436–460.

Grace, J. B. & Pugesek, B. H. (1998). On the use of path analysis and related procedures for the investigation of ecological problems. American Naturalist 152, 151–159.

Grace, J. B., Allain, L.,&Allen, C. (2000). Factors associated with plant species richness in a coastal tall-grass prairie. Journal of Vegetation Science, 11, 443–452.

Grime, J. P. (1973). Competitive exclusion in herbaceous vegetation. Nature, 242,

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Balogh-Brunstaddid not seem to use SEM in their piece, but some anbalysis of variance of changes in several outcomes, I think:

Balogh-Brunstad said: "The significance of differences in the effects of bacteria and fungus, pine, and the presence or absence of ectomycorrhizae on pine was determined by analyses of variance (SAS 2004)." (p. 157)

It is important to realize that there are 2 major mechanisms to think about when dealing with SAR In forests: scattering and absorption. The intuition is that if an object is wet and about the same size as the wavelength of the SAR data (or larger), then that object will generate scattering. Objects smaller than the wavelength will be responsible for absorption. So, the size of your buds in wavelengths is a key parameter for making sense of your data. You should calculate this. Based on your data, I would guess that the buds are fairly wet and small, causing more absorption than scattering. One can think of this like the beam of light is getting less bright as it propagates down through the branches, and witht he buds this happens faster. Hence objects that used to backscatter significantly are backscattering less because there is less "light" to backscatter. Ideally one would like to use a physics-based model to simulate such complex interactions.

Hi Jon!

I think perhaps you know our works on modelling stone pine cone and nut production, as e.g. Calama et al. 2011 Modelling spatial and temporal variability in a zero-inflated variable: The case of stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) cone production. Ecological Modelling (222, 606-618); Calama et al. 2008. An empirical ecological-type model for predicting stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) cone production in the Northern Plateau (Spain). Forest Ecology and Management 255, 660--673. Also awork focusing on the effect of thinning on cone production, Moreno-Fernandez et al.2013. AFS 70:761-768 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13595-013-0319-3#page-1

Regards

Rafa

Thank you Pedro. Yes, that is helpful and I will be looking up some of these!

Kathryn

I suggest you look to the work of Matt Busse for microfauna response to vegetation control in mixed-conifer plantations in northern California; and Jane Smith's work with mycorrhizal response to prescribed fire and fuels reduction treatments in Oregon.

Noa, think that there is no apriori answer to your question. Yes or no is not enough. The silvicultural system to apply depend on the ecologic, economic and ecological contexts. There have been cases in which a successful selñection system has been practiced, there are other cases in which the uneven age forest has been transformed to a even aged system with natural regeneration. You also have the possibility to have a selection system with a fixed cutting cycle ( specially appropiated for big forest units) or in which the haverst is selective but depends on the maturity criteria for each individual species. This last way to go is more appropriated for small and médium size forest properties. In Forest Science and Forest practice there are no absolute answers.

It will be interesting, as I see, many plants are medicinal, as well they are excellent ornamental, even you see lemon tree is good medicinal as well as small ornamental and many more you will find, it will be really interesting.

Here's what I found