Hopp til hovedinnholdet

Publikasjoner

NIBIOs ansatte publiserer flere hundre vitenskapelige artikler og forskningsrapporter hvert år. Her finner du referanser og lenker til publikasjoner og andre forsknings- og formidlingsaktiviteter. Samlingen oppdateres løpende med både nytt og historisk materiale. For mer informasjon om NIBIOs publikasjoner, besøk NIBIOs bibliotek.

2014

2013

Til dokument

Sammendrag

Old trees represent key features of old-growth forests and are important elements for maintaining biodiversity. Due to extensive human exploitation of Fennoscandian boreal forests during several centuries, old Norway spruce trees have become exceedingly rare. We analysed 91 spruce trees in Trillemarka Nature Reserve, southern Norway, to investigate (1) the maximum age of living trees, (2) growth rates of different-age trees and (3) growth trends in very old trees. Increment cores were taken from trees in selected old-growth stands located at 700–850 m a.s.l. Twelve spruce trees had an estimated total age of >400 years, the oldest one being 529 years and presumably the oldest known still living Norway spruce in northern Europe. A negative relationship between growth rate (basal area increment) and total age was observed, being most distinct for growth rates at 126–275 years and less marked for early stage growth (26–75 years). Thus, high age apparently was related more to low growth rates at adult and old stages of life rather than at the earlier stage. Among the trees >400 years, many of them did not show growth decrease with advancing age, indicating that ageing did not reduce growth. We conclude that the maximum age of stand-forming Fennoscandian Norway spruce trees would be in the range of 500–600 years.

Sammendrag

Huldrestry (Usnea longissima) er en epifyttisk hengelav kategorisert som sterkt truet på Rødlista fordi det de siste 10-årene er registrert en betydelig bestandsreduksjon. I 2005-2006 gjennomførte vi undersøkelser av skogstruktur og skoghistorie i 24 huldrestrylokaliteter, i produktive granskogbestand (Picea abies) med relativt høy kubikkmasse i Saksumdalen, Lillehammer. I sju delområder ble det i 2004-2007 gjennomført hogstforsøk i form av gjennomhogst, småflatehogst eller stripehogst, der kubikkmassen ble redusert med 30 – 50 %. Ti av områdene fra 2005/06 ble undersøkt igjen i 2012, hvorav tre ikke var påvirket av forsøkshogstene. Her ble antall tråder med huldrestry på til sammen 401 trær telt på nytt for å se hvordan laven hadde utviklet seg. Rundt huldrestrytrærne ble grunnflatesum (m2/ha) målt med relaskop før og etter hogst, for å estimere tettheten av skogen og hogstuttaket. Totalt antall trær med huldrestry endret seg ikke vesentlig, mens totalt antall huldrestrytråder på trærne hadde økt med 34 % fra 2005/06 til 2012. Det var større økning i antall tråder med huldrestry på trærne som var påvirket av hogstinngrepene (ca 50 % økning) sammenlignet med de trærne som ikke var påvirket av hogst (ca 10 % økning). Det var en markert økning i mengde huldrestry der skogen var glissen (lav grunnflatesum enten naturlig eller på grunn av hogstinngrepene), mens det var uendret mengde eller litt mindre huldrestry der skogen var tett (høy grunnflatesum). Det var ikke størrelsen på hogstinngrepene i seg selv som påvirket mengden huldrestry, men derimot hvordan skogen ble seende ut etter hogsten. [...]

Sammendrag

The mating system ofCapercaillie has been referred to as “exploded lek” because displaying males are spaced farther apart than on classical leks. However, inter-male distances and spacing behavior rarely have been quantified. In 2009–2011, we examined the spatial relationships of males on two leks in southeastern Norway by GPS satellite telemetry. Largely exclusive display territories (median 2 ha) surrounded the mating site, but the males spent most of the time displaying on smaller, well-defined display sites (median 182 m2) within their territories. When on their display sites, neighboring birds were spaced 64–212 m apart; decreasing to a minimum during the time of mating. Occasionally, males made long exploratory excursions (median 243 m) across the territories of neighbors, sometimes interacting with them at close distance (< 10m). During daytime, males resided solitarily in radially extending ranges within 1 km of the lek center, commuting to the lek either in the evening or morning by walking or flying, leaving in the morning mostly by walking. The distance from the lek center to night roosting trees and daytime resting areas decreased during the mating season. With interacting males and a spatial arrangement in-between that of classical leks and dispersed polygyny, the term “exploded lek” seems appropriate for the mating system of Capercaillie.

Til dokument

Sammendrag

To better understand the historic range of variability in the fire regime of Fennoscandian boreal forests we cross-dated 736 fire scars of remnant Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) wood samples in a 3.6 km2 section of the Trillemarka-Rollagsfjell Reserve of south-central Norway. Using a kernel range application in GIS we spatially delineated 57 individual forest fires between 1350 and the present. We found a strong anthropogenic signal in the fire regime from 1600 and onwards: (i) infrequent variably sized fires prior to 1600 shifted to frequent fires gradually decreasing in size during the 1600s and 1700s, with only a few small fires after 1800; (ii) time intervals between fires and the hazard of burning showed substantial differences pre- and post-1600; (iii) fire seasonality changed from late- to early-season fires from the 1626 fire and onwards; and (iv) fire severity decreased gradually over time. Written sources corroborated our results, narrating a history where anthropogenic forest fires and slash-and-burn cultivation expanded with the increasing population from the late 1500s. Concurrently, timber resources increased in value, gradually forcing slash-and-burn cultivators to abandon fires on forest land. Our results strengthen and expand previous Fennoscandian findings on the anthropogenic influence of historic fire regimes.

Til dokument

Sammendrag

This study combines tree-ring and charcoal data to explore possible drivers of the charcoal record and its spatial variation in a boreal Norwegian forest landscape. Peat and mineral soil samples were collected in a multiple site sampling approach and the amount of charcoal in the peat is related to fire history, Holocene climate variation, major shifts in the vegetation composition, and fuel availability. Dendrochronologic dating was used to reveal the fire history over the last 600 years with spatial and temporal accuracy, and AMS radiocarbon dating of 20 peat columns and their charcoal records from four peatlands was used to elucidate the fire history over the Holocene. The average amount of charcoal was about 2.5 times higher in the mineral soil than in the peat (270 versus 100 g/m², respectively), and there were considerable between- and within-site variations. There was no relationship between the age of a given peatland and its content of charcoal, nor between the amount of charcoal in a given peatland and in the neighboring mineral soil. Although most of the charcoal mass in the peatlands was found in parts of the peat columns originating from relatively warm climatic periods and from the period before the local establishment of Norway spruce (Picea abies), charcoal accumulation rates (per 1000 yr) were higher during cold climatic periods and similar before and after spruce establishment. Recent fires showed up to a low degree in the peat columns. On fine spatial scales (1–10 m), fuel quality and distribution together with fire behaviour throughout millennia are likely to be responsible for variations in the charcoal record. On the landscape scale (100–1000 m), the charcoal records were site-specifically idiosyncratic, presumably due to topography, distribution of fire breaks and fuel types, and human land use, coupled with long-term variations inherent in these factors.

Til dokument

Sammendrag

Several studies have recently reported that common species are more important for species richness patterns than rare species. However, most such studies have been based on broad-scale atlas data. We studied the contribution of different species occupancy, i.e. number of plots occupied, to species richness patterns emerging from species data in 50 by 50 m plots within six 140–200 ha forests in Norway. The study included vascular plants, lichens, bryophytes, and polypore fungi. We addressed the following questions: 1) are common species more correlated with species richness than rare species? 2) How do occupancy classes combine at various levels of species richness? 3) Which occupancy class is best in identifying the overall most species-rich sites (hotspots) by sampling? The results showed that rare species were better correlated with species richness than common species when the information content was accounted for, that high species richness was associated with a higher proportion of less frequent species, and that the best occupancy class for local hotspot identification was species present in 10–30% of the plots within a forest. We argue that the observed correlations between overall richness and sub-assembly richness are primarily structured by the combination of the distributions of species richness and species occupancy. Although these distributions result from general ecological processes, they may also be strongly affected by idiosyncratic elements of the individual datasets caused by the specific environmental composition of a study area. Hence, different datasets collected in different areas may lead to different results regarding the relative importance of common versus rare species, and such effects should be expected on both broad and fine spatial scales. Despite these effects, we suggest that infrequent species will tend to be more strongly correlated to species richness at local scales than at broader scales as a result of more right-skewed species-occupancy distributions.