Tree Storey Structure and Condition Dynamics in Middle-Taiga Native Spruce Forests of the Northern Ural Foothills

Abstract

The paper focuses on the dynamic processes occurring in indigenous spruce phytocenoses developing on the territory of one of the large reserves of spontaneous dark coniferous taiga in the European North – the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve. The aim of the study was to assess the size structure dynamics of the forest stands and the undergrowth, as well as changes in their vital status in naturally developing spruce stands of the green moss and long-stem moss groups of forest types in the foothills of the Northern Urals (the basin of the upper reaches of the Pechora River). The spruce stands, mixed in composition and complex in structure, form a cyclic uneven-aged type of structure. For the middle taiga indigenous spruce forests, based on the assessment of inequality in the woody plants’ sizes distribution, the results of the long-term structure monitoring of the forest stands and the undergrowth on four permanent sample plots were analysed. In forest stands of different types, a similar dynamics of tree differentiation by trunk volume and undergrowth by trunk height was observed. There is a significant accumulation of small woody plants individuals, with a smooth, evenly fading distribution of their numbers in the direction of size increase. Under the canopy of forest stands there is a continuous regrowth process. According to the data of stationary observations of the vitality and damage degree of trees and undergrowth of spruce forests, based on a visual assessment of a woody plant state according to the characteristics of the crown, a slightly weakened condition of both the upper tree layers of the phytocenosis and the lower – undergrowth was revealed. Spruce stands are at the stage of initial weakening or are already weakened, the undergrowth is predominantly healthy.