Tree species neighbourhood

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Describes the relation of single tree to its tree neighbours.

Uncovering the mechanisms behind positive diversity-productivity relationships in forests.

Globally, forests play a critical role in mitigating climate change by removing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it in wood. The strength of this carbon sync depends on a number of factors, such as climate, availability of nutrients and disturbance.

The understorey, a forest layer with an underestimated importance for ecosystem functioning

The major forest types in Europe, from the Boreal to the Mediterranean region, all include a variable number of native vascular plant species in the understorey layer (1.3 m height), both herbaceous and woody. In spite of its small stature and biomass this layer can contain 90% or more of the plant species of the forest. The functional role of the understory vegetation has already been shown in previous studies on temperate forests. They can serve as:

Timber quality vs. biodiversity - a contradiction?

Timber quality describes all the wood characteristics and properties that affect the value recovery chain and the service-ability of end products. In the context of timber production the quality of timber is a major driver for the price of the final product and the income of forest owners. The higher the quality of timber, the easier it is to achieve a ‘good’ price. For construction purposes the attributes dimension, stiffness and strength or dimension stability are most important. Wood properties determinate the quality of timber as well.

Effects of biodiversity on the transmission of foliar fungal pathogens in the German tree diversity experiment BIOTREE

Current theory on transmission rates of plant pathogens predicts a strong influence of host diversity on the degree of infection. We tested this prediction for foliar fungal pathogens on forest tree species, making use of the BIOTREE tree diversity experiment in Germany. We hypothesized that fungal species diversity was positively and fungal pathogen load negatively related to tree species diversity. We conducted analyses at three hierarchical levels, at the plot level, the level of single tree species, and the level of individual fungus species.

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