The estimation of aboveground biomass and nutrient pools of understorey plants in closed Norway spruce forests and on clearcuts

  • The estimation model PhytoCalc allows a non-destructive quantification of dry weight and nutrient pools of understorey plants in forests by using the relationship between species biomass, cover and mean shoot length. The model has been validated with independent samples in several German forest types and can be a useful tool in forest monitoring. However, in open areas within forests (e.g. clearcuts), the current model version underestimates biomass and produces unreliable nutrient pool estimations. Thus, tissue density, as approximated by leaf dry matter content (LDMC), is systematically higher under high light compared to low light conditions. We demonstrate that the ratio of LDMC under clearcut conditions to LDMC under forest conditions can be used to adjust the PhytoCalc model to clearcut conditions. We investigated the LDMC ratio of five exemplary species commonly occurring on clearcuts. Integrating the square of the ratio as a correction factor improved estimates of biomass to more than 70% fit between observations and predictions. Results also suggest this ratio can be used to correct nutrient concentrations modelled in PhytoCalc, which tend to be overestimated in clearcuts. As morphological groups of plant species exhibit significantly different ratios, we advise using group-specific correction factors for clearcut adjustments in the future.

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Metadaten
Author:Steffi Heinrichs, Markus Bernhardt-Römermann, Wolfgang Schmidt
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-273763
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-010-0362-7
ISSN:1612-4669
ISSN:1612-4758
ISSN:1612-4677
Parent Title (English):European journal of forest research
Publisher:Springer
Place of publication:Berlin ; Heidelberg
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2010/03/05
Date of first Publication:2010/03/05
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2012/11/01
Tag:Leaf dry matter content (LDMC); Nutrient concentration; Plant morphological groups
Volume:129
Issue:4
Page Number:12
First Page:613
Last Page:624
Note:
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
HeBIS-PPN:358429196
Institutes:Biowissenschaften / Biowissenschaften
Dewey Decimal Classification:5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 57 Biowissenschaften; Biologie / 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 63 Landwirtschaft / 630 Landwirtschaft und verwandte Bereiche
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Sammlung Biologie / Biologische Hochschulschriften (Goethe-Universität)
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 3.0