Obsah/Content: ZLV 2/2024
ZLV, 69, 2024, Číslo 20 - 0.
Presented literature review summarizes the knowledge about the issue of historical development of selection silvicultural system in Europe. It describes the selection system as a way to manage the forests that was connected until the first half of the 19th century mainly with not regulated tree harvesting and the overexploitation of forests. Only in some mountain regions with higher proportion of fir, the selection systém was appplied in a sustainable way with the single tree selection. Especially the forests in these regions became in following period the model for the foundation of selection silvicultural system on scientific basis. The largest expansion of selection system was recorded in the first half of the 20th century. After World War II, the interest in this silvicultural system gradually started to decrease, except the traditional regions of its origin. Currently we can observe the increasing popularity of selection forests that in the changing environmental conditions are assumed to be ecologically and economically more stable alternative to even-aged monoculture stands.
Artificial forest regeneration can significantly help to increase the share of silver fir. The process starts with the collection and handling of cones and seeds. In this study, a way was sought to promote the emergence of fir seedlings and thus effectively use the seeds for growing planting stock. The seeds were stratified over 7 weeks at the temperature of 3°C. Hydroabsorbent was added to the substrate in order to increase its moisture content. Both substrate treatments with and without the amendment underwent following watering regimes: 0 – no irrigation, 1 – irrigation once a week, and 2 – irrigation twice a week. Prior to seeding, all treatments were wetted initially as 5 liters of water were poured into one box with the substrate. Then plant emerging rates were monitored weekly over 5 weeks. The positive effect of the added hydroabsorbent was found only in the treatment with initial wetting without additional irrigation. The highest seedling emergency rate was found in substrate without super-absorbent, which was irrigated once a week.
This study focuses on bird monitoring in woodlots using two monitoring methods. Woodlots are located on the border of the Highlands Region and the South Moravian Region in the heterogeneous wooded landscape. Birds were monitored in 11 woodlots using two approaches – line transect and camera traps. The line transects took place between 2020 and 2022 in the spring and autumn, and monitoring with camera traps took place from March 2022 to December 2023. In the woodlots, spatial and structural characteristics such as height, width, length, circumference, and area of the woodlot stand were measured. Processing of the data obtained was carried out in the GIS system and overall evaluation in the statistical program R and Canoco 5 using the GLMM and pCCA methods. We revealed that each bird monitoring method captured a different spectrum of bird species depending on the woodlot geometry. The bird species composition of long, narrow and bushy woodlots was better matched by species recorded by camera traps, and the species composition of wide woodlots with taller and older forest stands was better matched by species records from transect. Regarding the use of traditional ornithological methods and camera traps, for the best results, it is advisable to combine both methods.
The study aims to quantify, categorize, and analyse the implemented projects to develop supported effects and ecosystem services of suburban recreational forests. Due to its recent intensive development, Recreational Forest Chrudim – Podhůra was selected as the case study area. After gathering information on the implementation, the projects were categorized according to their purpose, namely infrastructure, recreational, sports, and educational projects, and three categories were created according to their financial volume. The results of the categorizations were analysed. For project owners and operators, conducting proper economic analyses is essential for future development planning. Due to the work’s universality, the established procedures and results can serve not only recreational forest owners and operators. Presented information should help quantify, categorize, and plan development projects and other forest ecosystem services. The results can also be used to address the valuation and quantification of payments for forest ecosystem services.
Natural disturbances such as windthrows and bark beetle outbreaks are essential in the formation of natural forest ecosystem structures in Central Europe. Therefore, evaluating disturbances’ spatial and temporal extent and synchronicity is critical for understanding of forest dynamics. This study aimed to evaluate the long-term natural disturbance history of primary mixed-beech forests and investigate the species composition-temporal synchronisation relationship. We collected a unique dataset of > 6,000 tree cores across 14 forest stands on 174 study plots, and using dendroecological methods we reconstructed 200-year-long plot-level disturbance histories and evaluated synchronicity within the stands. Subsequently, we used GLMs to evaluate the tree species diversity-synchronicity relationship. The results showed substantial temporal variability of natural disturbances and a prevalence of low and moderate severity disturbances. Disturbance synchronisation was higher in the Western than in the Eastern Carpathian forests, which have a lower proportion of admixture tree species. Moreover, the GLMs showed a strong positive dependence of synchronicity on tree species richness. The results contradict the general assumption that mixed-species forests have higher resilience to disturbances than monospecific forests. The reason behind these findings can be attributed to the substantial admixture of Norway spruce, and its vulnerability to disturbances such as windthrow and bark beetle outbreaks.
European larch is a promising tree species for the creation of mixed forest stands in the Czech Republic. Due to its deciduous needles, it is relatively resistant to immission, and therefore it was used to establish substitute forest stands. Substitute forest stands were established in the 1970s and 1980s in heavily immissioned mountain and foothill areas with the intention of preserving the continuity of the forest environment and, in the case of larch, to partially replace the timber production of declining spruce stands. The aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of thinning on growth of a non-mixed larch stand in specific conditions of substitute forest stands at the age of 11–29 years. Thinning resulted in acceleration of the diameter growth of the released trees and improvement of their static stability in terms of reduction of the height-diameter ratio (HDR). The treatment where thinning at the age of 11 years was applied (treatment 3) showed a more favourable HDR of individual trees compared to the control, but the results were less satisfactory in terms of crown ratio (CR). The treatment with two thinning interventions at the age 11 and 20 years (treatment 2) produced satisfactory results both in terms of HDR and CR. However, the strong thinning at the age 20, when the stand was curtailed to only 320 trees per hectare, drastically reduced the basal area and is likely to result in a loss of production compared to the more moderate thinning options. However, in substitute forest stands, volume production is not the primary goal.
Effects of northern red oak on the forest soils were studied at the locality on the territory of the University forests of the Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague. The red oak stand part was compared to a stand part composed of native broadleaves with the dominance of European beech in a 71-year-old stand at the altitude 400 m a.s.l. The site was characterized as acid oak-beech site with Luzula nemorosa. Samples were taken in autumn 2022 for horizons L+F1, F2+H (quantitatively), and Ah, B in 4 replications. Results confirmed slight acidification of the upper soil horizons, consisting of a soil reaction decrease, bases content and base saturation, and especially worsening of the nitrogen dynamics, i.e. increase of the C/N ratio. Northern red oak was documented as a mildly acidifying species in given site conditions and its relevance should be limited to degraded sites and as a species, planted in conditions where domestic species cannot thrive.
The review article deals with the silvicultural and phytosanitary risks, which may influence the use of oak and walnut species in the Czech Republic in the climate change. The study covers 12 species: eight oak species native to Central and South-Eastern Europe along with the North-American northern red oak, eastern black walnut, Persian walnut, and hybrids of the two walnut species. Future risks associated with cultivation of northern red oak and eastern black walnut were found to be most serious. On the contrary, Turkey oak and Hungarian should be considered a species suitable for most drought-exposed sites. Growing of the studied species in new areas and sites should follow adjusted silvicultural designs. These could include creation of mixed stands managed with due care of individual trees. The coppice with standards, coppice, and even transformation towards agroforestry systems may be suitable systems for the studied species.