The GenTree Platform: growth traits and tree-level environmental data in 12 European forest tree species.

Background: Progress in the field of evolutionary forest ecology has been hampered by the huge challenge of phenotyping trees across their ranges in their natural environments, and the limitation in high-resolution environmental information.

Findings: The GenTree Platform contains phenotypic and environmental data from 4,959 trees from 12 ecologically and economically important European forest tree species: Abies alba Mill. (silver fir), Betula pendula Roth.

Short-term nitrogen dynamics are impacted by defoliation and drought in Fagus sylvatica L. branches.

The predicted recurrence of adverse climatic events such as droughts, which disrupt nutrient accessibility for trees, could jeopardize the nitrogen (N) metabolism in forest trees. Internal tree N cycling capacities are crucial to ensuring tree survival but how the N metabolism of forest trees responds to intense, repeated environmental stress is not well known. For 2 years, we submitted 9-year-old beech (Fagus sylvatica L.

Is the simple auger coring method reliable for below-ground standing biomass estimation in Eucalyptus forest plantations?

Background And Aims: Despite their importance for plant production, estimations of below-ground biomass and its distribution in the soil are still difficult and time consuming, and no single reliable methodology is available for different root types. To identify the best method for root biomass estimations, four different methods, with labour requirements, were tested at the same location.

Methods: The four methods, applied in a 6-year-old Eucalyptus plantation in Congo, were based on different soil sampling volumes: auger (8 cm in diameter), monolith (25 × 25 cm quadrate), half Voronoi trench (1·5 m(3)) and a full Voronoi trench (3 m(3)), chosen as the reference method.