Thesis (doctoral)--Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 2004. / Thesis documentation sheet inserted. Appendix includes reproductions of four papers and manuscripts, three co-authored with others; abstract of one paper also in French. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation describes the development and analysis of a new forest dynamics model. The NORTHern Woodland Dynamics Simulator (NORTHWDS) was designed to spatially model forest pattern and process for the northern Lake States, and to incorporate multiple spatial scales. While ecologically detailed, this stand table-based model is sufficiently parsimonious to be able to simulate 100s to 1000s of hectares for centuries. Processes like tree regeneration, growth, and mortality, herbaceous and shrubby competition, biogeochemistry, carbon cycling, edge effects, and climatic influences are incorporated in NORTHWDS. Wind disturbance and white-tailed deer browsing were also included to help forecast stand and landscape dynamics under managed and unmanaged scenarios. Preliminary results suggest that NORTHWDS can reliably predict long-term forest ecosystem responses to succession and disturbance. NORTHWDS was also applied to test the effectiveness of a managing-for-old-growth strategy, with results indicating that this type of management can provide improvements over traditional even- and uneven-aged harvest systems in desirable old-growth attributes like aboveground live biomass and coarse woody debris patterns. The results of the NORTHWDS developmental and application chapters were then synthesized to produce a new conceptual approach to landscape simulation that incorporated space, multiple scales, and a hierarchical design. A user's guide, the source code, and model defaults complete this dissertation.

The forest ecosystem is a dominant landscape in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) coastal region. Currently, many studies have been carried out to identify factors that drive forest dynamics. Changes in meteorological conditions have been considered as the main factors affecting the forest dynamics. For this study, the statistical regression analysis was used for modeling forest dynamics. Meteorological impact analysis was driven by observed data from PRISM (parameter-elevation regressions on independent slopes model) climate dataset. The forest dynamics was characterized by an indicator, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The objectives of this study are to 1) to specify and estimate statistical regression models that account for forest dynamics in the Golf of Mexico coastal region, 2) to assess which model used to capture the relationship between forest dynamics and its explanatory variables with the best explanatory power, and 3) to use the best fitted regression model to explain forest dynamics. By using fixed-effects regression methods: ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR), the sample-point-based regression analysis showed that meteorological factors could generally explain more than half of variation in forest dynamics. In respect of the unexplained variation of forest dynamics, the necessity of using soil to explain forest dynamics was then discussed. The result suggested that the forest dynamics could be explained by both meteorological parameters and soil texture. One of the basic considerations in this study is to include the spatiotemporal heterogeneity caused by seasonality and forest types. The model explanatory power was found differ among forest types (spatially) and seasons (temporally). By constructing regression models with randomly varying intercepts and varying slopes, the linear mixed-effects model (LMM) was fitted on composite county-based data (e.g., precipitation, temperature and NDVI). The use of LMMs was proved to be appropriate for describing forest dynamics to mixed-effects induced by meteorological changes. Based on this finding, I concluded that meteorological changes could play a significant role in forest dynamics through both fixed-effects and random-effects.

Sustainable management of mixed-species forests for timber is underpinned by research on forest stand dynamics and quantification of tree recruitment, growth and mortality rates. Different performance among species across light gradients theoretically prevents more shade-tolerant species from excluding shade-intolerant species, driving succession and allowing species coexistence. This research investigates stand dynamics and performance trade-offs for co-occurring tree species: Nothofagus fusca (red beech) and Nothofagus menziesii (silver beech), which together dominate extensive areas of New Zealand’s indigenous forest. Using permanent plot data, measurements of permanently tagged individuals are used to quantify recruitment, growth and mortality rates for each species, across size classes and life-history stages (i.e. seedlings, trees). First, seedling growth and mortality is examined in relation to microhabitats (e.g., light, substrate type) and contrasted with patterns of seedling abundance. Second, spatially explicit permanent plot data are used to examine tree growth in relation to competition, local disturbance and tree size over a 23-year period. Third, the influence of competition and disturbance on tree mortality and spatial patterns of tree mortality are examined. Fourth, a simulation model for tree population dynamics is parameterised for mixed-Nothofagus forest and used to evaluate long term consequences of disturbances (e.g. alternate harvesting regimes) on structure and composition. Small-scale disturbance favoured each species at different life stages and for different measures of performance (i.e. recruitment, growth or mortality). N. fusca seedlings and trees grew fast in high light microhabitats, such as those created by small-scale disturbances, but adult N. fusca mortality was elevated near sites of recent disturbance. By contrast, N. menziesii trees grew faster near sites of recent disturbance, which may help this species persist. Consequently, simulation results showed that small-scale disturbance frequency was a major determinant of forest composition and structure, determining whether N. fusca or N. menziesii is dominant. The simulation model could be developed further and used to inform the sustainable management of mixed-Nothofagus forests.

A pollen profile from varved lake sediments sampled at 10-year intervals and spanning the past 1000 years is analyzed to understand the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activity on forests in southwestern Quebec. The forests responded rapidly to changes in temperature and precipitation during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age as well as to land-use changes associated with the European Settlement of the area. The transition into the Little Ice Age was abrupt and had significant impact on the pollen production within a couple of decades. A synthesis of this record with other high-resolution and well-dated pollen data from the conifer-hardwood forest of eastern North America shows consistent results across the whole area, indicating that very-high resolution pollen data can provide insight into multi-decadal climate variability and its impact on forest vegetation. Tree-ring records from the region show inter-annual fluctuations not always consistent between sites, while high-resolution pollen data record multi-decadal to century changes which enable us to interpret climatic effects on plant communities.

This thesis presents the results of a study to examine long-term forest dynamics in the high-altitude mountains of West-Central Mexico. Vegetation dynamics on temporal scales ranging from 10² to 10³ years were reconstructed in order to provide essential information on the temporal variability of ecological patterns and processes in these forests; information that is of direct relevance for their current and future conservation and management strategies. Vegetation and palaeoecological methods undertaken included fossil and modern pollen analysis, vegetation surveys, microfossil charcoal analysis, magnetic susceptibility, inorganic and organic geochemistry, radiocarbon and ²¹⁰Pb dating. These were used to evaluate the long-term dynamics of three forest types; Pine Forest, Cloud Forest and Transitional Forest on timescales spanning the past 4260, 1340 and 1230 years respectively. The main drivers of change were climate and disturbance events induced by climate fluctuations, for example increased fire frequency. The reconstructed records indicate that the sequences from the Cloud Forest and the Transitional Forest spanned two wet and one dry climatic interval while the Pine Forest sequence spanned two dry and two wet periods. The impact of these climatic fluctuations was significant on all three forest types and resulted in variations in forest diversity, taxonomic turnover and successional change. The climate change episodes observed in these records seem to be the local manifestation of climatic events that were occurring throughout Mexico at these intervals in time. Human influences were evident in the three forests through the appearance of cultural taxa, particularly during the driest period (~ 1200 yr BP). There is little evidence from these records, however, to suggest a widespread clearance of the landscape for agriculture. Results from this study support the current conservation and management recommendations for Cloud Forest to exclude timber extraction, grazing and agricultural activities from this forest type. In the Pine Forest, human interventions such small-scale agriculture, prescribed burning and silvicultural actions are in agreement with the longterm pine ecology and as such, total exclusion of human activities is not necessary. For the Transitional Forest, results from this study suggest that there needs to be the establishment of adequate plans to reduce frequent fires to arrest the development of prone-to-fire taxa.

Avaliou-se a dinâmica do componente arbóreo de uma área de Floresta Ombrófila Mista na região sudeste do Brasil, com o objetivo de verificar seu estádio sucessional e sua aderência aos modelos dinâmicos propostos para esta formação. O primeiro, modelo lozenge, ou de substituição temporal de área, propõe que a dinâmica é influenciada por padrão de recrutamento intermitente dependente de distúrbios severos, para as pioneiras longevas, geralmente gimnospermas, que dominam estruturalmente a floresta. O segundo propõe que a presença da Araucaria angustifolia é indicativa de sucessão em curso, pois esta espécie não se regenera no interior da floresta, sendo substituída por espécies latifoliadas. Um terceiro propõe recrutamento dependente de abertura de clareiras para as pioneiras longevas. Esta avaliação foi feita em três etapas: através da dinâmica da estrutura fitossociológica observou-se se ocorreram alterações na ordem de importância das espécies; com a análise demográfica buscou-se caracterizar a estrutura de tamanho das populações arbóreas e através da análise da dinâmica espacial da floresta verificou-se se a formação de clareiras permitiu recrutamento das pioneiras longevas. Os resultados mostraram uma estrutura fitossociológica sem alteração na ordem de importância das espécies, embora tenha sido observado aumento da representação de espécies umbrófilas na submata e redução das espécies de áreas mais abertas. A análise demográfica mostrou que as gimnospermas mostram estrutura de coortes, de acordo com o que é esperado para pioneiras longevas, e que no período observado não recrutaram indicando declínio para suas populações. As espécies do dossel mostraram populações em desenvolvimento e na submata foi observada dinâmica mais intensa, com aumento populacional para espécies umbrófilas. A dinâmica espacial mostrou que várias espécies independem das clareiras para recrutamento e crescimento, mas o recrutamento, a mortalidade e o enriquecimento da floresta estão correlacionados com este processo. Não foi observado recrutamento das pioneiras longevas nas clareiras presentes na área de estudo. Estes resultados indicam que a floresta está em desenvolvimento, e que sua dinâmica é influenciada pela dinâmica das pioneiras longevas. Houve indicação de aderência aos dois primeiros modelos, e na ausência de distúrbios maiores, pode-se esperar que as pioneiras longevas sejam substituídas. / The dynamics of the tree component of a Mixed Ombrophylous Forest in the Southeast Brazil was evaluated to verify its successional stage and its agreement with dynamic models proposed for this formation. The first one, Lozenge model, or temporal plot replacement, proposes that the dynamics of long-lived pioneers, often gymnosperms, which structurally dominates the forest, is influenced by intermittent recruitment pattern, dependent of severe disturbances. The second proposes that the presence of Araucaria angustifolia is indicative of ongoing succession and that the A. angustifolia fate is to be substituted by broadleaf species. A third one proposes gap dependent recruitment for the long-lived pioneers. The evaluation was conducted in three phases: through the analysis of the dynamics of the phytosociological structure it was observed if changes occurred in the order of importance of the species, with a demographic analysis to characterize the size structure of the tree populations and through the analysis of the spatial dynamics of the forest it was investigated if gap formation fostered the recruitment of long-lived pioneers. The results showed a phytosociological structure with no change in the order of importance of the species, although it was observed an increase in the representation of umbrophyllous species in the understory and the reduction of sun tolerant species. The demographic analysis showed that the gymnosperms present a cohort structure in accordance with what is expected for long-lived pioneers and that during the observed time span they did not recruit, indicating a decline in their population. The canopy species presented populations in development and, in the uderstorey, a more intense dynamic was observed with population increases for the umbrophyllous species. The spatial analysis showed that many species are independent of gaps for recruitment and development but the forest recruitment, mortality and species enrichment are correlated with this process. It was not observed the recruitment of long-lived pioneers in the gaps presented in the study area. These results indicate that the forest is under development and that its dynamics is influenced by the dynamics of the long-lived pioneers. There was indication of adherence to the first two models and that, in the absence of major disturbances, it can be expected that the long-lived pioneers will be replaced.