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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Forest Growth
Volume 8 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2025.1523834

Effects of soil parameters of radial stem growth of four spruce stands in Austria

Provisionally accepted
Anita Zolles Anita Zolles 1*Sonja Vospernik Sonja Vospernik 2Silvio Schueler Silvio Schueler 1
  • 1 Austrian Research Centre for Forests (BFW), Vienna, Austria
  • 2 University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Vienna, Vienna, Austria

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Understanding tree growth in relation to environmental conditions is essential, particularly in the context of climate change, where rising temperatures, frequent droughts, and disturbances threaten forest health and productivity. This study uses high-resolution data from four intensively monitored Picea abies stands in Austria (2010-2020), with dendrometers recording hourly stem increments on 10 trees per site, allowing for detailed analysis of growth responses to environmental changes.For this purpose we tested different generalized additive mixed models (GAMs) using environmental data collected on site. The best model consisted of combinations of soil moisture (SM) and soil temperature (ST) data. Furthermore we analysed how the relationships established differ for three different times during the growing season. We found that high SM consistently had a positive effect on tree growth, wheras the effect of ST varied depending on the timing.Our findings underscore the importance of monitoring soil conditions, particularly for species like Picea abies, which are known for their sensitivity to environmental changes due to their shallow rooting systems and vulnerability to drought.

    Keywords: dendrometer, tree growth, soil moisture, soil temperature, generalized additive mixed models

    Received: 06 Nov 2024; Accepted: 10 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Zolles, Vospernik and Schueler. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Anita Zolles, Austrian Research Centre for Forests (BFW), Vienna, Austria

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