Long term monitoring and research in permanent plots
Silviculture based on natural dynamics has been developing for many years and involves several steps. Natural disturbance regimes must be studied even though the starting point for such research in the European Alps is not virgin forest or even old-growth forest, but rather forest stands more or less modified by man.
Foresters and ecologists are becoming progressively aware of the importance of past history on the structure and function of present communities and ecosystems. Very little is known about natural dynamics and disturbance history of forest stands in the European Alps because of insufficient research, and due to the fact that in cultivated forests, felling is the main disturbance. Even in most forests that are not currently managed, past anthropogenic disturbance suppresses or has been confused with natural disturbance. The intensive and diversified exploitation of forests, including logging and grazing, that occurred in the past complicates the study of natural forest dynamics.
In order to study forest ecology and dynamics some permanent plots have been established in the Italian Alps since the spring of 1993.
The first research step in the plots was to describe the structures (e.g. vertical and horizontal patterns, age structure, spatial patterns) and to study their history using both dendroecological methods (e.g. abrupt growth releases) and written evidence from management plans and other historical records.
Information about the disturbance history of a stand is crucial in studies of forest succession and the origin of structural patterns. Variations in tree-ring width can be used to reconstruct the occurrence of past forest disturbance and to speculate on the origin of the forest stand. In the forests of the European Alps, however, tree rings alone do not supply sufficient information, because most disturbances are of anthropogenic origin. It is therefore necessary to integrate tree-ring analysis with the documented history of the stand.
At the moment we have (Dep. Agroselviter, Univ. of Turin) a network of 14 permanent plots along the Italian Alps; the total surface monitored is more than 9 ha and we have collected more than 4.000 cores.
