Northern Karelian sites RESTORE research objectives and methodological design. Ekaterina Shorohova

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1 Northern Karelian sites RESTORE research objectives and methodological design Ekaterina Shorohova Metsäntutkimuslaitos Skogsforskningsinstitutet Finnish Forest Research Institute

2 Location

3 Objectives 1 Structures Tree population age, size and vital structures and factors affecting them Coarse woody debris (CWD) total volume, distribution by tree species, decay classes and wood types (snags, fallen and leaning trees, stumps and factors: site conditions, stand structure and successional dynamics Living trees / CWD ratio and its long-term dynamics Processes Natural disturbance dynamics, fire cycle, windthrows and fine-scale gap dynamics Tree increment and mortality Tree regeneration Carbon dynamics Decomposition of coarse woody debris (CWD)

4 Objectives 2 The stand stability Searching for steady state when the biomass and other characteristics do not change Resistance to fire and windthrow, resilience and elasticity after disturbances of different ecosystem components

5 Definitions 1. Resilience - returning to the reference state after a disturbance 2. Resistance - remaining essentially unchanged despite the presence of disturbances 3. Elasticity - speed of return to the reference state after a disturbance

6 Materials and Methods 3 permanent plots established in , 1.1 and 1.1 ha and 4 temporal plots 1, 0.7, 1 and 1 ha. Numbering and measurements of DBH of all living trees as well as snags, fallen trees and stumps Measuring height and estimating vitality class of every 5 th tree Coring every 5 th living tree Inventory of natural regeneration by tree species, height groups and vitality groups Taking samples from every 5 th sapling for tree rings analysis and age calculation Dating (determination of the year since death and year since fall) of every dead tree (snag, stump or log) using dendro-chronological methods, mainly cross dating, growth release of adjacent trees and mechanical scars from adjacent trees. Taking samples from every dead tree for decomposition and carbon dynamics study Lab-work: bulk density and tree ring analyses

7 Sample plot #2 all-aged pine forest with fine-scale gap dynamics, the increment, mortality and decomposition processes are reconstructed for the last 130 years

8 Fire scar hunting

9 Growth release-supression patterns for reconstruction of gap dynamics

10 Sampling to study tree mortality and decomposition

11 CWD decomposition study Photo:A. Kuznetsov

12 Main publications describing the RESTORE dataset So far only Lopatnikova, O., Shorohova, E Natural regeneration in the pristine northern boreal Scots pine forests in Karelia (Estestvennoje vozobnovleniye v korennykh severotaezhnykh sosnovykh lesakh Karelii) // Modern problems and prospects of sustainable forest use (Sovremennye problemy i perspektivy ratsional nogo lesopol zovzniya v usloviyakh rynka). Proc. Int. Conf., Ed. By A. Egorov. 2007, St-P. Forest Academy. Pp (in Russian)

13 Acknowledgements Fieldwork and data processing: Ekaterina Kapitsa, Anton Kuznetsov, Sergey Losev, Alexandr Gladyshev, Artur Molev, Dmitryj Malukhin, Olga Lopatnikova, Kirill Minin, Olga Ignatyeva, Maria Evilina, Ekaterina Nikolaeva, Gnitienko Maxim Funding Marie-Curie International Incoming Fellowships (236030) Russian Foundation for Basic Research ( , , , , )