Tree species distribution in temperate forests is more influenced by soil than by climate.

ABSTRACT: Knowledge of the ecological requirements determining tree species distributions is a precondition for sustainable forest management. At present, the abiotic requirements and the relative importance of the different abiotic factors are still unclear for many temperate tree species. We therefore investigated the relative importance of climatic and edaphic factors for the abundance of 12 temperate tree species along environmental gradients. Our investigations are based on data from 1,075 forest stands across Switzerland including the cold-induced tree line of all studied species and the drought-induced range boundaries of several species. Four climatic and four edaphic predictors represented the important growth factors temperature, water supply, nutrient availability, and soil aeration. The

SUBMITTER: Walthert L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5696420 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature