Depending on its developmental and morphological characteristics, shrubby or herbaceous understorey vegetation interacts differently with tree seedlings during the regeneration process. In acidic temperate forests, three common understorey plant species-Calluna vulgaris (L.) Hull, Pteridium aquilinum (L.) Kuhn in Kersten, Molinia caerulea (L.) Moench-are known to rapidly colonize forest gaps. Therefore, they often develop at the expense of light-demanding Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) seedlings. An experiment was set up in a nursery in central France to mimic early competition occurring in a newly created gap between Scots pine seedlings and these three common understorey species (young forest-harvested individuals planted at 5 densities from 0 to 57 plants m(-2)). Pine seedling survival and growth (height, diameter, shoot and root biomass) and a functional trait (leaf mass on an area basis, LMA) were measured for 2 years, and cross-analysed against plant density, plant cover and available light. When understorey plant density increased, pine seedling diameter growth and biomass were negatively affected by all three plant species; height growth only slowed beneath Pteridium. These negative effects were closely linked to competition for light beneath Pteridium and Molinia. The application of the Beer-Lambert law gave an extinction coefficient k that was high for Pteridium, intermediate for Molinia and much lower for Calluna. LMA was confirmed as an effective foliar trait to reflect the degree of stress undergone by pine seedlings

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& Key message The diversity of forest management systems and the contrasted competition level treatments applied make the experimental networks of the GIS Coop, a nationwide testing program in the field of emerging forestry topics within the framework of the ongoing global changes. & Context To understand the dynamics of forest management systems and build adapted growth models for new forestry practices, long-term experiment networks remain more crucial than ever. & Aims Two principles are at the basis of the experimental design of the networks of the Scientific Interest Group Cooperative for data on forest tree and stand growth (GIS Coop): contrasted and extreme silvicultural treatments in diverse pedoclimatic contexts. & Methods Various forest management systems are under study: regular and even-aged stands of Douglas fir, sessile and pedunculate oaks, Maritime and Laricio pines, mixed stands of sessile oak, European silver fir, and Douglas fir combined with other species. Highly contrasted stand density regimes, from open growth to self-thinning, are formalized quantitatively. & Results One hundred and eighty-five sites representing a total of 1206 plots have been set up in the last 20 years, where trees are measured regularly (every 3 to 10 years). The major outputs of these networks for research and management are the calibration/ This article is part of the Topical collection on Mensuration and modelling for forestry in a changing environment.

Abstract• It is widely believed that distance-independent tree models fail to take into account the complexity of mixed stands due to the fact that spatial structure often has a greater impact on growth and dynamics in mixed stands than in pure stands. On the other hand, distance-dependent tree models are difficult to use because they require a map of the stand, which is not only very costly but also impracticable in a routine management context.• This paper reports the development of a model bridging distance-dependent and distanceindependent tree models, and that is designed to simulate the growth of a mixed forest. The model used distributions of the number of neighbours to reconstruct tree neighbourhoods and compute the competition indices needed as inputs to the growth model.• Data were collected from a mixed forest of sessile oak and Scots pine in central France. The study showed that local competition indices explained a significant proportion of growth variability and that intraspecific competition was greater than interspecific competition. The model based on neighbourhood distributions gave consistent predictions compared to a distance-dependent model.• This type of model could be used instead of distance-dependent models in management contexts. Mots-clés :Peuplement mélangé / mélange chêne-pin / modèle de croissance / distribution de voisinage / indice de compétition Résumé -Un modèle intermédiaire entre un modèle arbre dépendant et indépendant des distances pour simuler la croissance des peuplements mélangés.• On considère généralement que les modèles arbre indépendant des distances ne permettent pas de rendre compte de la complexité des peuplements mélangés. En effet, la structure spatiale a souvent un rôle plus important sur la croissance et la dynamique dans ces peuplements que dans les peuplements purs. Les modèles arbre dépendant des distances sont quant à eux difficile à utiliser, car ils néces-sitent une cartographie du peuplement qui est une information très coûteuse à obtenir et qui n'est pas disponible dans un cadre de gestion courante.• Cet article présente un modèle intermédiaire entre un modèle arbre indépendant des distances et un modèle arbre dépendant des distances. Ce modèle a été développé pour simuler la croissance de peuplements mélangés. Il utilise des distributions de nombre de voisins pour reconstruire le voisinage des arbres. Ces voisinages reconstruits permettent ensuite de calculer les indices de compétition né-cessaires dans l'équation de croissance.• Les données ont été récoltées dans des peuplements mélangés de chêne sessile et de pin sylvestre dans le centre de la France. Ce travail montre que des indices de compétition locaux expliquent une part significative de la croissance individuelle et que la compétition intraspécifique est supérieure à la compétition interspécifique. Le modèle basé sur les distributions de voisinage donne des prédictions cohérentes par rapport au modèle arbre dépendant des distances.• Ce type de modèle pourrait être utilisé à la place des modèles...

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Background Growth modelling of complex stands calls for the use of spatially explicit single-tree models. Such models require spatially explicit tree locations as the initial state to run simulations. Given the cost of such data, virtual forest stands, where tree locations are simulated, are generally used as the initial state. o Purpose The purpose of this study was to present models for simulating the spatial structure of complex stands. It focused on mixed oak-Scots pine stands of the Orleans forest (France) and on the spatial structure of canopy trees. o Methods The spatial structure of the oak-pine stands was modelled with appropriate point process models. The models consisted of a combination of Poisson, Neyman- Scott and Soft core. Simulation of the point process models was based on precise characterisation of the studied stands. Twenty-five 1-ha oak-pine plots were characterised by the Ripley function. The models were then fitted to the identified spatial structure to reproduce univariate and bivariate spatial patterns in each spatial type. o Conclusion This paper provides an approach for general modelling of a spatial structure of a particular mixture and may be enriched by other point process models for other types of mixed stand. (Résumé d'auteur

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