Quantifying natural disturbances using a large-scale dendrochronological reconstruction to guide forest management

Estimates of historical disturbance patterns are essential to guide forest management aimed at ensuring the sustainability of ecosystem functions and biodiversity. However, quantitative estimates of various disturbance characteristics required in management applications are rare in longer-term historical studies. Thus, our objectives were to: (1) quantify past disturbance severity, patch size, and stand proportion disturbed, and (2) test for temporal and sub-regional differences in these characteristics. We developed a comprehensive dendrochronological method to evaluate an approximately two-century-long disturbance record in the remaining Central and Eastern European primary mountain spruce forests, where wind and bark beetles are the predominant disturbance agents. We used an unprecedented large-scale nested design dataset of 541 plots located within 44 stands and 6 sub-regions. To quantify individual disturbance events, we used tree-ring proxies, which were aggregated at plot and sta...

对历史干扰格局的定量估算，是指导以保障生态系统功能可持续性与生物多样性为目标的森林经营工作的核心依据。然而，在长期历史研究中，针对管理应用所需的各类干扰特征的定量估算成果仍较为匮乏。因此，本研究的目标在于：(1) 量化历史干扰烈度、斑块面积以及受干扰林分比例；(2) 检验上述特征在时间维度与亚区域维度上的差异。我们开发了一套综合的树木年代学（dendrochronological）方法，用以评估中欧与东欧现存原生山地云杉林中近两百年的干扰记录——该区域以风灾与树皮甲虫为主要干扰源。本研究采用了前所未有的大规模嵌套设计数据集，涵盖分布于6个亚区域、44个林分中的541块样地。为量化单次干扰事件，我们采用了树轮代用指标，并在样地与林分尺度上进行聚合……