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Voronin V. I., Oskolkov V. A., Buyantuev V. A., Sizykh A. P. Trends in Dynamics of Forest Upper Boundary in High Mountains of Northern Baikal Area

Keywords:
ecotone of the forest upper boundary, Daurian larch, forest regeneration, radial increment, northern Baikal area
Pages:
77–85

Abstract

How to cite: Voronin V. I., Oskolkov V. A., Buyantuev V. A., Sizykh A. P. Trends in dynamics of forest upper boundary in high mountains of northern Baikal area // Sibirskij Lesnoj Zurnal (Siberian Journal of Forest Science). 2016. N. 4: 7785 (in Russian with English abstract).

DOI: 10.15372/SJFS20160408

© Voronin V. I., Oskolkov V. A., Buyantuev V. A., Sizykh A. P., 2016

The studies of spatial and temporal variability of the forest upper boundary on the northwestern coast of the Baikal Lake (Baikal’sky and Verkhneangarsky Ridges) are performed on the base of the analysis of reforestation processes and of the dynamics of larch radial re-growth in the ecotone of the forest upper boundary and beyond it. The tree stand of the forest upper boundary in the studies area is represented by Daurian larch. Since 1980s, a sustainable trend of radial trees regrowth is observed. It is traced the most clearly at trees on the forest upper boundary of Baikal’sky Ridge. At the same time, the modern phase of increase of trees’ redial regrowth is lower by their absolute values than, e. g., ones in the XIX century. In other words, modern climate change in Northern Pre-Baikal is not for a while an extraordinary phenomenon. Due to improvement of conditions for forest growth, the outburst of forests renewal occurs, and the timber stands’ productivity increases, but these processes are within mean values. We have to notice the ingress of trees species into subgoltsy belt and into mountain tundra, which depends, respectively, on heights, exposure and tilt of the slopes and on sites of growth of concrete cenoses. A modern peculiarity of the vegetation in the studied area is the presence of abundant viable undergrowth of larch (from 2–3 to 25 y. o.) and fir in the ecotone of the forest upper boundary. During last 25 years, an abrupt outburst of larch re-growth occurred here, obviously resulting from the improvement of conditions for forest growth and first of all, from air temperature of spring-summer period. Better ripening and growth of larch seeds, sprouts conservation and ability to live up to elder undergrowth age became possible. Moreover, precipitation amount in winter period increased, and trees sprouts became more protected from freezing.


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