Abstract
Aleppo pine had a large forest cover in North Africa and along the Mediterranean basin which management is not fully developed and new forest tools are required. In this research, the forest structure, epidometric characteristics and allometric relationships were studied in 79 plots covering four bioclimatic zones from natural even aged forests of Aleppo pine located between eastern Algeria to the western coastal part of Tunisia. To characterize the forest structure three sampling methods were carried out: classical inventories (recording all pine trees), and two simplified approach using one average size or five dominant pine tree per plot. Annual growth increment and cone production were only calculated for the average size tree. Furthermore, the analysis of variance showed non-significant differences recorded between bioclimatic zones in trunk or crown diameter using the two simplified approach. Moreover, a significant decrease from wetter to drier areas in total height, crown height, cone seed production was observed only for average size tree method. However, the analysis of covariance showed significant differences between both approaches in total height, trunk diameter and crown coverage which were largely influenced by the pine tree density. In future investigations, we confirmed previous research that the dominant tree is a good sampling method to examine the site fertility, whereas the average size tree constitutes a valuable approach to study the population growth and reproduction.
Highlights
Mediterranean Basin ecosystems are disturbed by soil erosion, drought periods, night frost, summer heat and forest fires (Fernández and Tapias, 2005)
We developed linear regressions relating the values of DBH, Ht and crown diameter (CWD) obtained from both sampling methods (AST and dominant tree value (DT)) and the pine tree density
Mean frequency (%) Average tree DBH not showing significant differences with the averaged values obtained from the average size tree (AST) approach but were significantly lower than those obtained with DT methodology
Summary
Mediterranean Basin ecosystems are disturbed by soil erosion, drought periods, night frost, summer heat and forest fires (Fernández and Tapias, 2005). Climate change (higher aridity and longer drought periods) and its consequences, such as changes in fire dynamics, could induce a loss of vigor, productivity and alter reproductive dynamics, decreasing the ecosystem resilience (Moriondo et al, 2006; Schiller and Atzmon, 2009) These effects have been found in Aleppo pine forest in the Mediterranean Basin (Sabaté et al, 2002) and new tools are required to prevent and mitigate them. According to the FAO (2001), along the northern African Basin a high forest surface is covered with natural or reforested Aleppo pine stands (about 850,000 ha in Algeria, 300,000 ha in Tunisia and 65,000 ha in Morocco) In this way, there is a general interest in this species in the Mediterranean Basin due to the importance of its ecological and protective characteristics, such as their wide distribution in addition to soil protection in areas where other species could not survive or carbon sink properties even in areas with low site quality (Montero et al, 2001). This species is very important for both the economic role, such as timber and seed production promoting local employment, and for the ecological value, such as the high resilience and resistance (FAO, 2001)
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