Scholarly record

CONDITION AND PROSPECTS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF FOREST STANDS IN THE NATIONAL NATURE RESERVE ZADN- PO?ANA (SLOVAK REPUBLIC)

Martin Pavlik, Jaroslav Kmet, Miriama Sulekova

Abstract

The preserved complex of forest stands of the beech up to the spruce forest vegetation level mainly of primeval forest character within the National Nature Reserve ZadnпїЅ Po?ana has been a part of the core zone of the Biosphere Reserve Po?ana within the project пїЅHuman and BiosphereпїЅ of the UNESCO organisation since 1990. Also these forest stands are being influenced to a great extent by abiotic and biotic harmful agents, which negatively affect their health and further development. Since the late 1990s, the National Nature Reserve ZadnпїЅ Po?ana and the Forest district Kyslinky of the Forest enterprise KrivпїЅ? have recorded increased occurrence of spruce brood trees and snags, what raised fears of massive spread of bark beetles into adjacent protection and production forests. The subject of the current research is the evaluation of the causes and extent of the damage to forest stand with the assumption of its further development and possible further spread also beyond the area of the national nature reserve with the aim to propose measures to prevent the undesirable damage to forest stands in accordance with the valid legislation. Samples of assimilation organs were taken from two representative spruce stands in the area of ZadnпїЅ Po?ana, one sample was taken from intact spruce stand and one from a stand disrupted by the activity of bark beetles. The samples were then analysed from the point of view of mineral nutrition (content of N, P, Ca, Mg, K, Zn, Mn, Fe, B, Al and Cu). At the same time samples of overlying humus were taken from both stands in order to evaluate the physical and chemical properties of soil environment (pH-H2O, pH-CaCl2, overall nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus). The results show evident subthreshold content of magnesium in assimilation organs of both stands, also significantly higher content of nitrogen, aluminium and mainly manganese in the samples taken from the damaged forest stand. The damaged forest stand features a high number of snags, brood trees and dead wood. Therefore, we dealt with determining the fire risk in the studied area as well. The main factors affecting the fire occurrence are climate and topography conditions, as well as the stand characteristics as age, stand density and species composition. Further factors include weather пїЅ temperature and atmospheric humidity, precipitation, wind speed and direction. By evaluating the development and condition of the forest stand damaged by the bark beetles, as well as by the possible impact of surrounding stands, it can be concluded that early removal of all active brood trees from the stand in the studied area within sanitary felling would decrease the number of brood trees only by half during the monitored period when compared to a scenario where sanitary felling would not take place. In such case the effect of sanitary felling is therefore insignificant and intervention into the ecosystem in the form of sanitary felling does not have any significant impact on further spread of brood trees in the stand.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2017/32/s14.100

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