NELDER-oak forest

Growth and structure of oaks along a climatic and density gradient

Global change and local adaption rise new challenges for our forests, but also offer opportunities to improve our ecological understanding. One focus of forest science is hereby on new management strategies and drought resistant tree species.

The TUM-Audi oak forest project is designed to answer research questions about productivity, biodiversity and carbon sequestration of oak forests. This will improve our scientifically understanding of tree and forest growth which is relevant for practitioners too. 

The project itself is conceptualized as a two-factor experiment. Trees were planted at six experimental sites across Central Europe which follow roughly an environmental gradient from Atlantic to a rather continental climate. A seventh trial will be established in Puebla, Mexico, in 2024.

The unique Nelder planting design adds the second factor to the project. Concentric and expanding circles, each of 18 trees, form a gradient of neighborhood density. While all trees of one site experience the same environmental conditions, they are growing in various distances to each other as each tree has a defined position on the site. For some trees, their next neighbours are in less than 40 cm vicinity while between other trees and their neighbors there is more than 3 or even 14 meters of distance. This results in a growing space gradient that represents all possible space variations, from extremely dense forest stands to park-like landscapes.

The current project phase focusses on the effects various growing spaces and the facilitative and/or competitive influences of a trees’ neighbourhood. We investigate the net-effects of tree-tree interaction under different ecological site conditions. Additionally, we aim to reveal how competition and annual climatic variability interact on dry or more humid sites. 

Further evaluations will include space occupation and tree allometry and will aim to include Dendrometer-data from the Nelder talking trees project in our analysis.

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