Editorial: Forest monitoring to assess forest functioning under air pollution and climate change

Geßler, Arthur; Ferretti, Marco; Schaub, Marcus C.

doi:10.3389/ffgc.2022.952232

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Nowadays, large-scale studies on forest health cover almost 85% of the world’s forest resources and are conducted in over 110 countries worldwide [ 49 ]. European forest monitoring, coordinated by the International Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests), is an example of such a programme [ 50 ]. It uses a visual assessment of the crown as the main source of information about the health of a particular tree and the whole stand.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Mortality, or not mortality, that is the question …”: How to Treat Removals in Tree Survival Analysis of Central European Managed Forests

Lech,

Kamińska

2024

Plants

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Tree mortality is an objective forest health criterion and is particularly suitable for long-term and large-scale studies of forest condition. However, it is impossible to determine actual tree mortality in Central European managed forests where trees are removed for various reasons. In this case, the only way to approximate tree mortality is to define the range in which it occurs. This can be carried out by including in the mortality calculations either dead trees that remain in the stand at the end of the assessment period or additionally trees that have been removed from the stand. We used data from the annual forest monitoring surveys in Poland from 2009 to 2022 for pine, spruce, oak and birch to perform a survival analysis in which we included all removals or sanitary cuttings either as censored or complete observations. The differences between the calculated mortality rates were significant, indicating the importance of how removals are treated in the analysis. To assess which method used for mortality calculation was more appropriate, we compared values for last recorded defoliation and severity of damage from live, dead and thinned or salvaged trees. For all species studied, significant differences were found between dead trees or trees removed by sanitation cuts and living trees or trees removed by thinning, suggesting that not only dead trees remaining in the forest, but also trees removed by sanitation cuts, should be considered when calculating mortality in managed stands. We also recommend the use of survival analysis in forest monitoring as a routine method for assessing the health of stands.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%