The historical disturbance regime of mountain Norway spruce forests in the Western Carpathians and its influence on current forest structure and composition.

ABSTRACT: In order to gauge ongoing and future changes to disturbance regimes, it is necessary to establish a solid baseline of historic disturbance patterns against which to evaluate these changes. Further, understanding how forest structure and composition respond to variation in past disturbances may provide insight into future resilience to climate-driven alterations of disturbance regimes. We established 184 plots (mostly 1000 m²) in 14 primary mountain Norway spruce forests in the Western Carpathians. On each plot we surveyed live and dead trees and regeneration, and cored around 25 canopy trees. Disturbance history was reconstructed by examining individual tree growth trends. The study plots were further aggregated into five groups based on disturbance history (severity and timing)

SUBMITTER: Janda P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5572639 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature