Climate response to forest management in beech stands

Abstract

This work summarises the climatic data assembled in five submountain beech forest stands with different cutting patterns. The highest mean monthly air temperature values in March–July were obtained on a plot with 20-year-old beech thicket (T); in August–October on a stand after light shelterwood cuts (L) and in November–February in a closed stand (C – control). On the contrary, in the summer months June–July the C manifested the lowest temperature values, while in the winter (October–February) the temperature was the lowest on the open area (OA). The maximum one-hour (12-min averages were recorded) temperature increased with decreasing stand density of parent trees. The highest temperature value making 33.3 °C was measured in T, in OA reaching at the same time 32.9 °C, while on the C only 28.9 °C. The highest mean daily temperature showed
a similar trend. Maximum soil temperature at a depth of 5 cm on the C occurred from the end of July to the beginning of September. The same hold for this variable on T but with the values lower by about 0.5 °C. The soil temperature at 20 cm had the peak not sooner that in the first ten-day period of September. During the whole period, the difference between the rainfall on OA and the throughfall in the C was statistically significant (P ≤ 0.05). The highest monthly air humidity was always found on the OA, or on the T without parent stand (with variation from 72% in April to 95% in November). The lowest mean air humidity was observed in the densest adult stands: in March–October on plot L and in November–February (after the leaf fall) on the control.