DendroNEP

Linking dendrochronological information with net ecosystem productivity of forest ecosystems

Contact
Werner Eugster

Project Members
Roman Zweifel (WSL)
Matthias Haeni (PhD candidate)
Sebastian Zielis (PhD candidate)

Timeplan
2011-2013

Related Projects
COST FP903 MAFor
ProDoc
Forest_CH
TreeNet

Collaborations
Lund University, Sweden
University of Helsinki, Finland
Poznán University of Life Sciences, Poland
And the network is growing

Research Sites
Davos Seehornwald
Laegeren

Overall Framework

Within the COST Action FP0903 MAFor, we plan to advance a new method that allows to derive net ecosystem productivity (NEP) with simpler and less costly point dendrometers with fine temporal resolution (hours and better), following Zweifel et al. (2010).

Methodology

We will use a hierarchical approach in which we benefit from the European collaboration within COST by using selected forest sites with continuous eddy covariance flux measurements and continuous dendrometers to explore the applicability of the method over a latitudinal gradient from Italy to Finland. Currently, we are working with Prof. Dr. Anders Lindroth from Lund University, Sweden, with Prof. Dr. Timo Vesala from the University of Helsinki, Finland and with Janusz Olejnik from the Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poland. The network however is still growing and is open to any European institute or research institution interested in collaborating.

On the national level, we will extend the existing measurements to a small network with dendrometers to address the small-scale variability of forest growth in the diverse climatic and edaphic conditions in Switzerland (TreeNet). As the lowest level, it will be investigated how simple manual dendrometer measurements and readings could possibly be used to approximate NEP even at sites where neither eddy covariance nor continuous dendrometer measurements are possible.

Publications