COST Action E 52 - vTI - Bund.de

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resources oF beech IN sWITZerLaNd
PASCALE WEBER 1 – ANDREA R. PLUESS 2 – URS MÜHLETHALER 3
1 Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
2 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH, Zürich, Switzerland
3 Bern University of applied Sciences SHL, Forest Ecology, Zollikofen, Switzerland
absTracT
Beech is the second most important tree species in Switzerland, covering a wide range of the forested
area with varying site conditions. In many forest communities of the sub-montane and lower
montane range, beech is the dominant tree species; whereas from the lower to middle montane zone,
beech becomes less important in comparison to spruce and fir. Beech accounts for around 1 % of
the Swiss total growing stock, which explains its importance for timber production. The rotation
time for good quality timber is around 100 – 140 years. Since beech has been regenerated naturally
for a long time, beech provenances for artificial regeneration have played only a marginal role so far.
Nevertheless, in studies from the beginning of the 20th century, Swiss lowland provenances were
compared to provenances from higher altitudes. Furthermore, in the Danish provenance trial, the
two tested Swiss provenances Adliswil and Sihlwald were found to be of superior economic returns.
However, Switzerland is not carrying out provenance trials under COST E52, although some Swiss
provenances have been tested in other European countries. Recently, several projects have been
undertaken studying environmental impacts on beech in Switzerland. Further investigations will
be needed to understand better the impact of climatic changes and raising CO 2 on the distribution
and growth of beech in Switzerland. At least model simulations suggest an altitudinal upward shift in
beech distribution due to increasing drought, if beech does not have the plasticity or the evolutionary
potential combined with the required time to adapt to future environmental conditions.
Key words: Fagus sylvatica L., distribution range, provenance, Switzerland
couNTry daTa
Area: 41,285 km 2
Elevation: between 193 m a. s. l. (Lago Maggiore) and 4,634 m a. s. l. (Dufourspitze)
Climate data: annual precipitation: between 521 mm (Ackersand Stalden) and 2, 01 mm (Säntis)
annual mean temperature: between - .9 °C (Jungfraujoch) and 11.6 °C (Lugano)
Climate is regionally diverse.
These climate data are norm values for the period 1961 – 1990 and are taken from the website of the
Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss.
Forest area: 12, 46 km², 31% of total area (FOEN/WSL 200 )