Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2003
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Svein Ole Borgen Anne Moxnes JervellAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Morten NittebergAbstract
The Norwegian Forest Research Institute (Skogforsk) is conducting a study of mechanised harvesting in cable operations.The activity of cable crane systems is heavily reduced the last years in Norway. There are different reasons for this:Low price on wood High direct logging cost Relative low technical development Hard to recruit workers General scepticism to logging in steep terrain, due to environmental influences The positive environmental effect by use of cable crane systems is not well known, and is overshadowed by the negative publicity. Use of cable crane systems may among other things contribute to reduce technical encroachment in the terrain, road building, and wheeled terrain transport.When the harvesting operation in steep terrain is mechanised the safety will increase and the working load will be easier. We hope this will have a positive effect on recruiting workers to this kind of work.The use of harvester inn logging operation will probably also increase the productivity of the cable crane system, and will hopefully give better economy for steep terrain harvesting. A harvester (Menzi Muck A71) is developed in Switzerland for use in steep and difficult terrain. The harvester is based on a Menzi Muck excavator. The machine is mainly build for operations in steep terrain up to 60 %, but with a safety winch it may operate in steepness up to 100%.The Menzi Muck harvester is now working together with a Owren 400 cable crane system in steep terrain (30 70 % steepness), and Skogforsk will during the project period study the productivity and the operating cost of the cable crane system in cooperation with Menzi Muck harvester, and compare the result with ordinary manual felling. This will be done time study and operational statistics.The project started up 1 July 2002, so at this moment we do not have much data, but within March 2003 we will have data enough to present some results.
Authors
J.W. Hudgins Erik Christiansen Vincent R. FranceschiAbstract
Conifers have defenses such as the production of phenolic compounds and resins that can be induced by bark beetles and other invading organisms, but the signaling agents involved are unknown. The anatomical effects of methyl jasmonate (MJ), a potent inducer of certain plant defenses, were compared with wounding of the bark of 1215-year-old trees of five conifer species.Wounding in all species resulted in tissue necrosis and wound periderm development immediately around the wound site. One cm from the wound, swelling of phloem polyphenolic parenchyma cells and phenolic accumulation were observed in Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco, Picea pungens Engelman, Larix occidentalis Nutt. and Pinus monticola Douglas ex D. Don, but not in Taxus brevifolia Nutt.Traumatic resin ducts were formed in response to wounding in three species of Pinaceae, but not in P. monticola, which formed irregular clusters of cells rather than ducts. Taxus brevifolia did not form resin ducts in response to either wounding or MJ treatment.In the Pinaceae species studied, surface application of 100 mM MJ caused similar anatomical changes to those observed in response to wounding, including phenolic accumulation, cell swelling and traumatic resin duct formation, but it did not induce a wound periderm.Traumatic resin ducts differed in size among the study species, ranging from small in L. occidentalis to very large in P. menziesii. In P. menziesii, P. pungens and L. occidentalis, traumatic resin ducts were more abundant after MJ treatment than after wounding. We conclude that the octadecanoid pathway is likely involved in defense responses in stems of the Pinaceae, but not necessarily in other taxa.
Authors
Trond Knapp Haraldsen Per Anker PedersenAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
B. Michalzik Edward Tipping Jan Mulder J.F. Gallardo Lancho Egbert Matzner C.L. Bryant Nicholas Clarke S. Lofts J.F. Vicente EstebanAbstract
DyDOC describes soil carbon dynamics, with a focus on dissolved organic carbon (DOC). The model treats the soil as a three-horizon profile, and simulates metabolic carbon transformations, sorption reactions and water transport. Humic substances are partitioned into three fractions, one of which is immobile, while the other two (hydrophilic and hydrophobic) can pass into solution as DOC. DyDOC requires site-specific soil characteristics, and is driven by inputs of litter and water, and air and soil temperatures. The model operates on hourly and daily time steps, and can simulate carbon cycling over both long (hundreds-tothousands of years) and short (daily) time scales. An important feature of DyDOC is the tracking of 14C, from its entry in litter to its loss as D014C in drainage water, enabling information about C dynamics to be obtained from both long-term radioactive decay, and the characteristic 14C pulse caused by thermonuclear weapon testing during the 1960s ("bomb carbon"). Parameterisationis performed by assuming a current steady state. Values of a range of variables, including C pools, annual DOC fluxes, and 14C signals, are combined into objective functions for least-squares minimisation. DyDOC has been applied successfully to spruce forest sites at Birkenes (Norway) and Waldstein ( Germany), and most of the parameters have similar values at the two sites. The results indicate that the supply of DOC from the surface soil horizon to percolating water depends upon the continual metabolic production of easily leached humic material. In contrast, concentrations and fluxes of DOC in the deeper soil horizons are controlled by sorption processes, involving comparatively large pools of leachable organic matter. Times to reach steady stateare calculated to be several hundred years in the organic layer, and hundreds-to-thousands of years in the deeper mineral layers. It is estimated that DOC supplies 89 % of the mineral soil carbon at Birkenes, and 73 % at Waldstein. The model, parameterised with "steady state" data, simulates short-term variations in DOC concentrations and fluxes, and in DO 14C, which are in approximate agreement with observations
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Authors
Tron Eid Bernt-Håvard ØyenAbstract
Models for predicting mortality in even-aged stands were developed. The models rely on data from the Norwegian National Forest Inventory, and were designed for use in large-scale forestry scenario models. A two-step modelling strategy was applied: i) logistic regression models predicting the probability of complete survival to occur, and ii) multiplicative regression models for stem number reduction and diameter calibration. A joint model for all species predicting the probability of survival to occur on a plot was developed. Separate models for spruce, pine and broadleaved-dominated forests were developed for stem number reduction, while no appropriate models for diameter calibration were found. The phenomenon mortality is a stochastic, rare and irregular event, and this was reflected as low R2 in the models. However, the model performance appeared logical and the results of validations based on independent data were reasonably good, i.e. the presented models may be applied for large-scale forestry scenario analyses. With new rotations of permanent sample plot measurements, the models should be evaluated and, if necessary, revised.
Authors
Holger LangeAbstract
High resolution digital elevation maps (DEMs) offer the investigation of multifractal properties of the spatial characteristics of river basins like the width function, and the determination of the relation between average slope and basin area.There have been a number of universality claims in this respect; the range of the scaling exponent for the slope-area relation seems to be narrow, and the multifractal spectrum of the width function is characterized by a single site-specific Lipschitz-Hlder exponent alpha, the spectrum having an envelope given by that of Peanos basin.Comparing 17 river basins covering two orders of magnitude in basin area, our findings do not confirm this universal character. In particular, the Lipschitz-Hlder exponent crucially depends on the resolution of the width function extraction; we show that it is easy to produce almost identical spectra for completely different basins when varying the resolution.The problem of interior points is also encountered. We adopt Venezianos modified calculation of f(alpha) in this case. The slope-area exponent covers a wide range of values which also include the pure random case. We thus question the usability of these measures as a classification tool for river basins. http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EAE03/05246/EAE03-J-05246.pdf
Authors
Holger LangeAbstract
For the intepretation of multifractal properties of experimental time series, two prominent procedures used are the double trace method (DTM) and the universal multifractal (UM) approach. We calculated multifractal spectra for a collection of long-term precipitation, air temperature and river discharge records, covering a wide range of spatial scales.Considering K(q) in this framework leads to an effective classification of dynamical behavior. Comparison of the DTM and UM methodologies, however, reveals substantial differences which make them difficult to reconcile. This is in particular true for the discharge case.The scaling exponent is generally larger in magnitude for the DTM and in some cases even extends into the non-analytical regime. Part of previous work thus could not be confirmed. Whether the description of river flow as multifractal process is feasible remains an open question. http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EAE03/05092/EAE03-J-05092.pdf