Current issue: 58(1)

Under compilation: 58(2)

Scopus CiteScore 2021: 2.8
Scopus ranking of open access forestry journals: 8th
PlanS compliant
Silva Fennica 1926-1997
1990-1997
1980-1989
1970-1979
1960-1969
Acta Forestalia Fennica
1953-1968
1933-1952
1913-1932

Articles containing the keyword 'soil-water retention'

Category : Research article

article id 502, category Research article
Janne Levula, Hannu Ilvesniemi, Carl Johan Westman. (2003). Relation between soil properties and tree species composition in a Scots pine–Norway spruce stand in southern Finland. Silva Fennica vol. 37 no. 2 article id 502. https://doi.org/10.14214/sf.502
Keywords: Norway spruce; Scots pine; tree species composition; soil texture; soil-water retention; spatial variability
Abstract | View details | Full text in PDF | Author Info
It is commonly known in Finland that Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is a tree of dry soils and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L) Karst.) is a tree of fresh soils. However, the concepts of dry and fresh soils still lack a precise definition. Consequently, the discussion on which soil/site is a pine or spruce habitat has continued over several decades. Moreover, in forest regeneration, the practice of tree species selection between the pine and the spruce has varied. We investigated the relationship between soil properties and pine–spruce species composition in a mature, naturally regenerated stand in southern Finland. We applied spatial analysis to divide the stand area up into 3–7 classes based on selected soil properties and then investigated the variations in species composition among those classes. The pine–spruce basal area ratio (BA of pines / BA of spruces) increased along with increasing mean particle size and proportion of coarse sand and gravel particle size fraction (0.6–20 mm) of mineral soil, and was lowest in classes, with the highest proportions of fine texture fractions. The results suggest that in southern Finland on sorted soils, pine is more competitive in regeneration and growth than spruce when mean particle size is above 0.44 mm or percentage of coarse sand and gravel is higher than 50%.
  • Levula, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Ecology, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: janne.levula@helsinki.fi (email)
  • Ilvesniemi, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Ecology, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: hi@nn.fi
  • Westman, University of Helsinki, Department of Forest Ecology, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: cjw@nn.fi

Register
Click this link to register to Silva Fennica.
Log in
If you are a registered user, log in to save your selected articles for later access.
Contents alert
Sign up to receive alerts of new content
Your selected articles