Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2013
Abstract
The relative volume growth effects of thinning after whole-tree harvesting (WTH) compared to a conventional stem-only harvest (CH) in young stands of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) were analyzed, using a series of four pine and four spruce field experiments. The series was established in the years 1972–1977, and thinning was performed only once. Results are shown periodically and cumulatively. All sites were included for 20 (19) years in pine and 25 years in spruce. The total experimental period varied between 19 and 35 years for individual sites. Four models assuming additive or multiplicative effects gave only slightly varying results. The inclusion of standing volume after thinning as a covariate was effective in spruce independent of whether the covariate was treated as multiplicative or additive. A logarithmic model with a multiplicative effect of the covariate was preferred in further presentations. Results for pine stands after 20 years indicated a nonsignificant loss of 5% with confidence limits (p = 0.05) of ±6–7%, while the spruce stands showed a significant growth loss of 11% with confidence limits of ±4–5% after 25 years. The difference between the species in relative growth effects was significant, and amounted to 8% for a cumulative 20-year period. No indications of trends in response were found during a 20-year period in pine and a 25-year period in spruce. An analysis of growth effects in the first years showed that basal area increment in spruce was significantly reduced already in the first growing season after thinning.
Authors
Ragnar Johnson Mika Mustonen Tomas Lundmark Annika Nordin Yuri Gerasimov Aksel Granhus Eugene Hendrick Jari Hyninen Vivian Kvist Johannesen Adam Kaliszewski Virginijus Miksis Thomas Nord-Larsen Heino Polley Liana Sadauskiene Pat Snowdon Birger Solberg Erik Sollander Arnor Snorrason Mati Valgepea Sheila Ward Toms ZalitisAbstract
Forests will play a crucial role in the transformation from an economy based on fossil fuels to one relying on renewable resources. Hence, besides being a source of raw material for the forest industry, in the future, forests are expected to increasingly contribute to the production of energy as well as providing a wide range of environmental and social services. Thus, the objective of the present study is to assess the short-term and long-term potential for increasing sustainable wood supply in the EFINORD countries. Present practices and prospects for intensive forest management have been assessed using information from a questionnaire complemented by compilation and evaluating of national forest inventory (NFI) data and other forest sector relevant information. The study indicates a striking variation in the intensity of utilisation of the wood resources within the EFINORD region. For the region as a whole, there seems to be a substantial unused (biophysical) potential. However, recent NFI data from some countries indicate that annual felling rates can be underestimated. If felling rates are higher than currently recognised then, given the increased demand for wood-based energy, there appears to be a need to discuss strategies for large-scale implementation of more intensive forestry practices to ensure that the availability of wood resources in the future can meet an increasing demand in the EFINORD countries.
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Over the past 40 years, a new multidisciplinary field of study has emerged which is characterised by at least two major changes in the way some scientists treat systems. First, it is increasingly accepted that we cannot fully understand the laws that govern a system simply by studying its parts, nor can we fully understand the behaviour of the parts without placing them in the context of the larger system in which they are embedded. This realization, which has arisen as we face the limits of reductionist science, has given rise to the development of new models and methods that facilitate the study of systems across multiple scales of organization. Second, the notions of equilibrium and predictability in natural systems, developed in the 19th Century and continuously pursued until far into the 20th Century, are being rejected in favour of models that embrace variability, diversity, continual change and adaptation as the status quo. Traditional analytical models that assume a stable equilibrium are being replaced by new approaches that facilitate the exploration of a system’s natural range of variation and its possible emergent responses to changing external conditions. The implications of this new field, now known as complexity science, are manifest across disciplines, fundamentally changing the way we study, analyze and perceive natural systems. We provide an overview of complexity science in the context of forest management.
Abstract
The quality of surface water and groundwater is closely related to flow paths in the vadose zone. Therefore, dye tracer studies are often carried out to visualise flow patterns in soils. These experiments provide images of stained soil profiles and their evaluation demands knowledge in hydrology as well as in image analysis and statistics. The classical analysis consists of image classification in stained and non-stained parts and calculation of the dye coverage (i.e. the proportion of staining). The variation of this quantity with depth is interpreted to identify dominant flow types. While some feature extraction from images of dye-stained profiles is necessary, restricting the analysis to the dye coverage alone might miss important information. In our study we propose to use several index functions to extract different (ideally complementary) features. We associate each image row with a feature vector (i.e. a certain number of image function values) and use these features to cluster the image rows to identify similar image areas. Because images of stained profiles might have different reasonable clusterings, we calculate multiple consensus clusterings. Experts can explore these different solutions and base their interpretation of predominant flow type on quantitative (objective) criteria.
Abstract
Fine roots contribute to net primary production in forests, but knowledge of fine root longevity and turnover is still incomplete and limited to few tree species. In this study, we used minirhizotrons to compare fine root biomass, longevity and turnover of Pinus sylvestris L., Betula pendula Roth and Picea abies (L) Karst. in southern Sweden. Minirhizotron tubes were installed in 2006 and root images were taken in 2007–2010. Soil cores were used to estimate fine root biomass. Soil samples were taken from the humus layer and from 0 to 10 cm, 10 to 20 cm and 20 to 30 cm depth in the mineral soil. Only images from the humus layer and the upper 10 cm of mineral soil were included in root analysis. Spruce has a higher aboveground production than pine and birch in southern Sweden and this was reflected in larger fine root biomass as well as higher fine root biomass production. The annual tree fine root biomass production (humus and 0–30 cm in mineral soil) was 73, 78 and 284 g m−2 in pine, birch and spruce stands, respectively. Thicker fine roots tended to live longer. The majority of the fine roots were thinner than 0.5 mm in diameter, with a turnover rate (KM) of 0.4 year−1. When comparing all fine roots, i.e. all roots 0–2 mm, pine had the highest longevity, 1120 days, compared with 900 days for spruce and 922 days for birch (KM).
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
When calculating the Bandt and Pompe ordinal pattern distribution from given time series at depth D, some of the D! patterns might not appear. This could be a pure finite size effect (missing patterns) or due to dynamical properties of the observed system (forbidden patterns). For pure noise, no forbidden patterns occur, contrary to deterministic chaotic maps. We investigate long time series of river runoff for missing patterns and calculate two global properties of their pattern distributions: the Permutation Entropy and the Permutation Statistical Complexity. This is compared to purely stochastic but long-range correlated processes, the k-noise (noise with power spectrum f−k), where k is a parameter determining the strength of the correlations. Although these processes closely resemble runoff series in their correlation behavior, the ordinal pattern statistics reveals qualitative differences, which can be phrased in terms of missing patterns behavior or the temporal asymmetry of the observed series. For the latter, an index is developed in the paper, which may be used to quantify the asymmetry of natural processes as opposed to artificially generated data.
Authors
Alexander Radebach Jonathan F. Donges Reik V. Donner Susana Barbosa Holger Lange Jürgen KurthsAbstract
No abstract has been registered