The spatial distribution of expressions of ecologically relevant characteristics in mixed stands (mosaics of indicators)

The common intention of an increased establishment, development and sustainable cultivation of mixed forest stands leads to the question which special ecological effects result from these mixtures and how they can be modelled. To answer this, it is necessary to first explain cause-effect relationships of mixtures which will be investigated in this project exemplified by the resource supply at the forest floor of mixed beech-spruce forest stands. We will apply the single-tree based approach of the "ecological field theory" first explaining single-tree effects and then subsequently extrapolating to an entire forest stand (“from point to area approach”). This attempt is expected to provide models with few parameters which can be used to modify the common exclusive growth models and to upgrade these models by adding primary ecosystem-oriented indicators of sustainability. We   plan for the consideration and implementation of our results into silvicultural management models.
The project is implemented in cooperation with Prof. Dr. W. Näther, Freiberg University of Technology and Prof. Dr. M. Bredemeier, Forest Ecosystem Research Center at Göttingen University.