The influence of surface fire on radial and height growth of Pinus sylvestris L. in forest-steppe in Ukraine

Abstract

The article presents the results of the research on the peculiarity of response ofPinus sylvestrisL. growth in height and diameter in young pine forest stand of the Left-Bank forest-steppe of Ukraine under the influence of surface fire that happened in May 2011. Forestry taxation, comparative ecology, standard dendrochronological methods were used. Response of trees was different for the height growth and the radial increment in the year of fire (2011). The radial growth got depressed in the year of fire; at the same time, the height of trees showed positive trend of growth against the background of favourable weather conditions. The growth in height was more ductile and completed its recovery to a particular level in 2014, unlike the radial growth, which recovered only in 2016. The relationships between radial growth on one side and stand sanitary state and height of bark char on the other were approximated by quadratic and cubic regression equations. Dynamics of pine growth depends on climatic factors also. Percentage of the late wood should be used to assess the condition of stands after fire. Research of post-pyrogenic development of forest ecosystems will allow more effective planning of forest management measures, and also allow the adjustment of the monitoring duration for pine forest stands damaged by fires.

War drives forest fire risks and highlights the need for more ecologically-sound forest management in post-war Ukraine

“…We achieved good accuracy for all three classes of disturbance causal agent. While previous studies solely relied on the NBR magnitude indicator of spectral change caused by disturbance 14 , 40 , we also extracted fitted data for other predictors. Here, tasseled cap brightness was extremely useful for distinguishing tree harvest (SRH) from other disturbance agents: clear-cut sites become literally ‘lighter’ for satellite sensors, while burned tree canopies range from red (slightly ‘lighter’ than healthy dark-green foliage) to black (far ‘darker’ in visible range of electromagnetic spectrum).…”

Analysis of climate changes in the forest fund lands of Boyarka Forest Research Station

“…Due to such deterioration of the hydrological regime, as one of the phenomena, it is also possible to observe the activation of stem pests. In the forest-steppe zone, temperatures rose especially quickly during the cold period [21]. This led to a decrease in the radial increment of pine due to the disruption of winter rest in trees, while the minimum values of the radial increment are characterized by periods with a considerable decrease in precipitation and an increase in temperatures at the beginning of the growing season, as well as in its second half.…”

Untitled

“…Dendrochronological methods are widely used in modern research on the dynamics of forest ecosystems, the response of plantings to climate change, and the assessment of plant damage and productivity (Huang et al, 2021;Soulé et al, 2021;Sun et al, 2021). Radial tree growth is a bioindicator that can be used to determine the level of forest damage, the response of trees to climate stress factors (Koval, 2020;Kipfmueller et al, 2022), increased lighting, etc. (Altman, 2020;Carter et al, 2021;Kraj et al, 2022).…”