Biomass equations for European beech growing on dry sites

doi:10.3832/ifor1881-009

Biomass equations for European beech growing on dry sites

Tamalika Chakraborty⁽¹⁾ , Somidh Saha⁽²⁾, Albert Reif⁽¹⁾

iForest - Biogeosciences and Forestry, Volume 9, Issue 5, Pages 751-757 (2016)
doi: https://doi.org/10.3832/ifor1881-009
Published: Jun 17, 2016 - Copyright © 2016 SISEF

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Biomass equations for European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) trees growing on dry sites have not been published, although such equations are needed for a proper estimation of the biomass of beech trees growing naturally at their drought limit in dry forests. We aimed to: (1) develop new allometric above-ground biomass equations for European beech trees growing on dry sites; (2) compare these equations with existing biomass equations. We harvested 86 plants, ranging from saplings to trees, from forest stands on south-facing slopes at 5 locations in Germany and Switzerland. Whole plant weights were measured in the field after felling, and samples from stem, branches and leaves of every harvested plant were brought to the laboratory. We developed diameter- and height-based regression equations for the total above-ground biomass, stem with bark biomass, and biomass of the branches with leaves and further compared them with the existing equations from the literature. Our results showed that the 5 current diameter-based equations available in the literature significantly overestimate the total above-ground biomass, the stem with bark biomass and the biomass of branches and leaves. With increasing tree size, the proportion of the biomass of branches and leaves to the total tree biomass decreased significantly. We also found that the inclusion of height in biomass models did not influence the prediction of total above-ground biomass, but significantly improved the prediction of stem biomass. We recommend that researchers and foresters use the equations developed in this study to quantify the biomass of beech trees growing under similar site conditions.

Keywords

Above-ground Biomass, Stem Biomass, Abandoned Oak Coppiced Forest, Stunted Growth, Plant Size Allometry

Authors’ address

(1)

Chair of Vegetation Science, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacherstr. 4, D-79085 Freiburg (Germany)

(2)

Chair of Silviculture, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Tennenbacherstr. 4, D-79085 Freiburg (Germany)

Corresponding author

Tamalika Chakraborty
tamalika.chakraborty@waldbau.uni-freiburg.de

Citation

Chakraborty T, Saha S, Reif A (2016). Biomass equations for European beech growing on dry sites. iForest 9: 751-757. - doi: 10.3832/ifor1881-009

Academic Editor

Giorgio Alberti

Paper history

Received: Sep 21, 2015
Accepted: Mar 30, 2016

First online: Jun 17, 2016
Publication Date: Oct 13, 2016
Publication Time: 2.63 months

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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