Towards the first Scots pine chronosequence studies in Poland

Since January 2008 the first eddy covariance (EC) ecosystem station in Polish forests was set up in a 54-year-old homogenous Scots pine stand near Tuczno (north-western part of the country).  Almost 40-m tall steal scaffold tower ensures obtaining CO₂ and H₂O fluxes from the area extending to 500 m in the prevailing wind direction most of the time. Until now measurements carried out in Tuczno forest are the only direct, real-time and long-term studies of this type in the Poland. In comparison with other European pine forests, investigated using the same technique, this site is very productive, annually sequestering about 16 t of CO₂ per hectare. There were many other comprehensive studies done nearby the main EC tower, which were the part of the common project founded by the State Forests since the very beginning e.g.: dendrometry and typical forest biometrics, hydrological and soil investigations, etc.

The results of EC measurements of CO₂ fluxes from Tuczno site together with data from two others pine forest sites: Tlen I (5-year-old forest, 6 years of data) and Mezyk (25-year-old forest, 2 years of data) allowed to create the cumulative NEP over the chronosequence. This is the first chronosequence curve for one tree species in this part of Europe. Since the climate and soil conditions at all three sites are very similar (there is no significant statistical difference), the current research at all site will be continued until 2025 and we do expect a full chronosequence curve very soon. These results were also compared with models (mainly CBM) and we would like to extend our results to the whole territory of Poland where it is a dominant species (about 60% of total forest area is covered by Pinus Silvestris).