Phenology of trees is strongly driven by environmental factors which influence the overall vigor and vitality of trees. Some phenological phases like Fruit development are very susceptible to stress. Would it be useful to create a method for tree vitality assessment through the phenological activity of a tree?
Dear Ladislav,
As you said, phenology of trees is strongly driven by environmental factors. Thus, the onset and duration of phenophases depends more on environmental factors than on the vitality status of the tree. This is true that flowering and fruit maturation can affect tree fitness (ie. the genetic contribution of a given individual to the next generation ~the offspring) but probably not the vitality per se. This could be quite complex, for instance the timing of bud burst is a crucial phenological event in temperate trees because young leaves are very sensitive to frost. Yet, seedlings and saplings that flush earliest will be selected if no late spring frosts occur (they are more competitive for light and water availability regarding neighbour plants and canopy closure), whereas they will be damaged and counter selected if during a couple of years severe late frosts occur. Perhaps, the amount and size of seeds produced might be a good proxy for tree fitness.
Dear Yann,
it makes sense. My plan is to do a pilot experiment. I would like to monitor phenological activity of seedlings in differentiated water regime under controlled conditions. It will be done next year. Hopefully I will get some useful answers and an outgoing point for my future research.
Thank You for Your comment.
Dear Ladislav,
I agree with Yann. Phenological events are very much dependent on environmental factors. Hence, it could not be considered as the only parameter to determine tree vitality. You can try to take the regeneration potential and mean survival rate of the species into account along with the phenological events. This might help you to get more authentic results.
Regards.
Dear Ladislav,
I agree with Yann. Phenological events are very much dependent on environmental factors. Hence, it could not be considered as the only parameter to determine tree vitality. You can try to take the regeneration potential and mean survival rate of the species into account along with the phenological events. This might help you to get more authentic results.
Regards.
Dear Ladislav,
I agree with Yann. Phenological events are very much dependent on environmental factors. Hence, it could not be considered as the only parameter to determine tree vitality. You can try to take the regeneration potential and mean survival rate of the species into account along with the phenological events. This might help you to get more authentic results.
Regards.
Dear Gautam,
I agree with Your statement and Yanns too. Since my core research is phenology i try to link it with tree vitality. I know that tree vitality is very complex phenomenon and can be assessed with different methods.
Survival rate seems to be a very good advice, when focusing such phenological events as shoot growth (primary, secundary), cladoptosis, leaf senescense, fruit fall, autumn flowering in temperate trees etc. I m aware of the fact that the results gained in such observations will kind of awkward to evaluate, but i ll give it a try.
Thank You again for the advices and I m following Your publications :)
Laco
Dear Ladislav,
Phenology method for assessing tree vitality might be useful but in specific conditions. I mean comparing plants growing in the same site (e.g. along a street in a city). Due to my observations early leaf senescence of particular specimens within an examined group was one of the features connected with poor vitality, leading to severe damage of trees. Nevertheless, we should remember that poor tree vitality is just a consequence of shortenning of carbohydrates production period in the growing season. Poor or abundant fruit production may not be an unequivocal indicator of good tree vitality because sometimes trees (especially young) produce more fruit when they are in visibly poor condition. However, such phenological features should be found to be repetitive.
Regards,
Tatiana Swoczyna
Dear all,
I would like to push forward this question...
According the Futmon D1: Tree vitality and Adaptation Project (http://www.futmon.org/d1-tree-vitality-and-adaptation ) tree vitality can be characterised by different parameters:
Ok. I got this, but didnt get further info from this projects - does somebody know, where can i find it?
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