Publications by authors named "Pavel Samonil"

With ongoing global warming, increasing water deficits promote physiological stress on forest ecosystems with negative impacts on tree growth, vitality, and survival. How individual tree species will react to increased drought stress is therefore a key research question to address for carbon accounting and the development of climate change mitigation strategies. Recent tree-ring studies have shown that trees at higher latitudes will benefit from warmer temperatures, yet this is likely highly species-dependent and less well-known for more temperate tree species.

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  • - The study examines the relationship between tree maturation size and reproduction, finding that larger tree species tend to start reproducing at a smaller size than expected, challenging previous assumptions.
  • - Researchers analyzed seed production data from 486 tree species across different climates, revealing that maturation size increases with maximum size but not in a straightforward manner.
  • - The results indicate that this trend is particularly pronounced in colder climates, highlighting the importance of understanding maturation size to better predict how forests will respond to climate change and disturbances.
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  • Herbivorous insects significantly impact nutrient cycling in forests, with tropical forests experiencing more nutrient release from these insects compared to temperate and boreal forests.
  • The study utilized a global network of 74 plots in mature forests to analyze various leaf compositions and nutrient fluxes influenced by insect herbivory.
  • Results indicate that increasing temperatures can enhance these interactions, thus influencing global biogeochemical cycles and altering ecosystem dynamics in broadleaved forests.
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  • The vegetation history of semi-dry grasslands in Central Europe is complex, with current species diversity potentially stemming from long-standing open landscapes or past forested phases.
  • Detailed studies were conducted on soil samples to analyze carbon and nitrogen content, lipid distribution, and stable isotopes from various plant materials.
  • Findings indicate a significant contribution of C3 trees to soil organic matter during the late Pleistocene to early Holocene, with a notable transition to grassy and herbaceous vegetation occurring from the early Holocene onwards.
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Trees contribute to bedrock weathering in a variety of ways. However, evaluating their full impact is complicated by a lack of direct observation of unexposed root systems of individual trees, especially when the scale of the analysis goes down to the level of microbiomes. In the present study, we investigated the contribution of tree root systems to bioweathering and soil production at the macro- and microscale.

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Temperate forests are undergoing significant transformations due to the influence of climate change, including varying responses of different tree species to increasing temperature and drought severity. To comprehensively understand the full range of growth responses, representative datasets spanning extensive site and climatic gradients are essential. This study utilizes tree-ring data from 550 sites from the temperate forests of Czechia to assess growth trends of six dominant Central European tree species (European beech, Norway spruce, Scots pine, silver fir, sessile and pedunculate oak) over 1990-2014.

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Variations in the growth of aboveground biomass compartments such as tree stem and foliage significantly influence the carbon cycle of forest ecosystems. Yet the patterns of climate-driven responses of stem and foliage and their modulating factors remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigate the climatic response of Norway spruce (Picea abies) at 138 sites covering wide spatial and site fertility gradients in temperate forests in Central Europe.

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One mechanism proposed to explain high species diversity in tropical systems is strong negative conspecific density dependence (CDD), which reduces recruitment of juveniles in proximity to conspecific adult plants. Although evidence shows that plant-specific soil pathogens can drive negative CDD, trees also form key mutualisms with mycorrhizal fungi, which may counteract these effects. Across 43 large-scale forest plots worldwide, we tested whether ectomycorrhizal tree species exhibit weaker negative CDD than arbuscular mycorrhizal tree species.

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Rock weathering drives both landform formation and soil production/evolution. The less studied biological component of weathering and soil production caused by tree root systems is the main focus of the present study. Weathering by trees, which likely has been important in soil formation since the first trees emerged in the middle and late Devonian, is accomplished through both physical and biological means, like acids excreted by plants and exudates from associated bacterial communities.

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  • Masting is when trees produce a lot of seeds at different times, which helps them survive by confusing animals that eat seeds.
  • However, this can be bad for the animals that help trees spread their seeds because they rely on a steady food supply.
  • Researchers found that some trees avoid masting to keep their disperser animals happy, especially in different climates and depending on how much nutrients they need to grow.
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The height growth of the trees depends on sufficient mechanical support given by the stem and an effective hydraulic system. On unstable slopes, tree growth is affected by soil pressure from above and potential soil erosion from below the position of tree. The necessary stabilization is then provided by the production of mechanically stronger wood of reduced hydraulic conductivity.

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Tree rings provide an invaluable long-term record for understanding how climate and other drivers shape tree growth and forest productivity. However, conventional tree-ring analysis methods were not designed to simultaneously test effects of climate, tree size, and other drivers on individual growth. This has limited the potential to test ecologically relevant hypotheses on tree growth sensitivity to environmental drivers and their interactions with tree size.

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  • The study investigates how arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) and ectomycorrhizal (EcM) associations influence tree diversity across different latitudes, using data from over 2.8 million trees.
  • AM trees were found to significantly contribute to reducing total tree diversity and turnover while enhancing nestedness at higher latitudes, contrasting with EcM trees that show less influence on compositional differences.
  • Environmental factors, especially temperature and precipitation, were more closely related to the beta-diversity patterns of AM trees, emphasizing the role of AM associations in maintaining global forest biodiversity.
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In order to gauge ongoing and future changes to disturbance regimes, it is necessary to establish a solid baseline of historic disturbance patterns against which to evaluate these changes. Further, understanding how forest structure and composition respond to variation in past disturbances may provide insight into future resilience to climate-driven alterations of disturbance regimes. We established 184 plots (mostly 1000 m) in 14 primary mountain Norway spruce forests in the Western Carpathians.

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