RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Mixing effects on growth efficiency in mixed pine forests
A1 Riofrío Salazar, José Guillermo
A1 Río Gaztelurrutia, Miren del
A1 Bravo Oviedo, Felipe
K1 Pinos - Crecimiento
K1 Bosques y silvicultura
K1 Bosques - Gestión - España
K1 Pinos - España
K1 3106 Ciencia Forestal
AB Increased interest in mixed forests is due to evidence of them being more resource-use efficient and stable forest systems. However, intrinsic and extrinsic factors moderate interspecific species interactions generating different effects in productivity. Here, we explore a method to detect mixing effects in a specific mixture combination (Pinus sylvestris L. and Pinus pinaster Ait.), comparing the growth of mixed stands with that of monocultures. Combined tree and stand-level analyses also helped determine which mixing effects are most important for forest functioning and how changes at one level influence patterns at another level. Data from the Spanish National Forest Inventory were used to compare growth efficiency in mixed and pure stands; we relied on relative stand density indices to determine species-specific site occupancy. This same concept was used to evaluate competition status and inter/intra-specific competition effects as modifiers of potential growth at the tree-level. We observed that growth efficiency in both species increased with the proportion of the complementary species in the stand. At the tree-level, intraspecific competition was higher than interspecific competition in Scots pine tree growth, showing that it had benefited from the mixture. In contrast, maritime pine did not show a competitive response to the interspecific interaction, indicating that tree growth was more strongly influenced by the competition structure (size-symmetric and size-asymmetric) than by the species of the competitors. Our results highlight the importance of combining stand-level analysis with that of tree-specific competition relationships when studying mixed-species forests.
PB Institute of Chartered Foresters
SN 0015-752X
YR 2017
FD 2017
LK https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/50500
UL https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/50500
LA eng
NO Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research, 2017, vol. 90, n. 3, p. 381–392
NO Producción Científica
DS UVaDOC
RD 28-dic-2024