Productivity and ecological functions of naturally regrown pine forests of the Ukrainian Polissia
Increasing the forest cover of the territory of Ukraine and bringing it to optimal parameters in the conditions of global climate change, the aggressive war of Russia against both the Ukrainian society and the environment, requires the search for adequate mechanisms for preservation and reproduction...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Ukrainian National Forestry University
2024-10-01
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| Series: | Наукові праці Лісівничої академії наук України |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://fasu.nltu.edu.ua/index.php/nplanu/article/view/824 |
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| Summary: | Increasing the forest cover of the territory of Ukraine and bringing it to optimal parameters in the conditions of global climate change, the aggressive war of Russia against both the Ukrainian society and the environment, requires the search for adequate mechanisms for preservation and reproduction of forest formations. Along with the implementation of the "Green Country" program of the President of Ukraine, on which the foresters of the country and society as a whole are successfully working, special attention should be paid to the preservation and forest management of naturally regrown forests created by nature on agricultural lands.
In the Ukrainian Polissia, the category of self-seeded areas received perhaps the largest representation in the country due to the fairly high forest cover of the region, where forest tracts border on agricultural lands which lost the profitability of cultivation by their owners during the period of Ukraine's independence. The main forest-forming tree species found in these naturally regrown forests on agricultural lands is Scots pine, which became the object of the study.
According to a specially developed methodology, 23 temporary sample plots were laid out in five regions of the Ukrainian Polissia (Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Chernihiv) with felling and polyfractional evaluation of 76 trees in naturally regrown forests with a predominance of Scots pine.
In the course of the studies, it was found that natural pine stands on agricultural lands grow mainly according to the site class index Ia and higher. This tendency is especially evident in young stands due to the residual accumulation of nutrients in the soil of former agricultural lands. The relative stocking of the studied stands usually exceeds 1.0 (sometimes reaches 2.0 units), which indicates the need to develop an appropriate forest mensuration regulatory framework for a comprehensive assessment of this category of stands.
One of the main studied ecological functions of naturally regrown pine forests is the volume of carbon accumulation and rates of carbon sequestration. Their parameters functionally depend on the productivity of forest stands, the mass of the photosynthetic apparatus (needles) and indicators of the basic density of living biomass components. Based on the indicators of basic wood density (341 kg·(m3)-1), the studied stands have a slightly lower density compared to other pine forests of the Ukrainian Polissia zone, which are characterized by high moisture content in wood at a young age, soil conditions (structure, mechanical composition, fertility), which has a significant impact on the formation of late wood, and, consequently, on its density.
The mass of needles in naturally regrown pine stands usually exceeds the compared parameters in pine stands of natural and artificial origin in the study region at fixed average heights and diameters of stands from 10.0 to 55.0%, which significantly affects the current wood increment and, accordingly, carbon accumulation.
The conducted studies prove that naturally regrown pine forests at a young age deposit more carbon than artificial and natural stands in the study region. Thus, 1 hectare of the forest already at the age of 10 years can accumulate up to 30 tons of carbon only in the above-ground part, which is a significant contribution to the overall balance of the implementation of the ecosystem function of forests, therefore they require protection and proper forest management. |
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| ISSN: | 1991-606X 2616-5015 |