1,3,4,3,5,6,12,13,14,1- 1Slovenian Forestry Institute, Department for Forest and Landscape Planning and Monitoring, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- 2Università degli Studi di Padova, Dipartimento Territorio e Sistemi Agro-Forestali (TESAF), Via dell'Università 16, 35020 Legnaro PD, Italy
- 3National Institute for Research and Development in Forestry ‘Marin Drăcea’, 007190 Bucharest, Romania
- 4Faculty of Silviculture and Forest Engineering, Transilvania University of Brașov, 500036 Brașov, Romania
- 5Center for Mountain Economy (CE–MONT), 725700 Vatra Dornei, Romania
- 6Dendrolab IBL, Department of Silviculture and Genetics, Forest Research Institute (IBL), Sękocin Stary, Poland
- 7Department of Forest Management, Dendrometry and Economics of Forestry, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
- 8State Forests, Regional Directorate of State Forests in Łódź, Department of Forest Resources Management, Jana Matejki 16, 91-402 Łódź, Poland
- 9Department of Forest Ecology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Praha 165 21, Czech Republic
- 10Faculty of Forestry, Technical University in Zvolen, T.G. Masaryka 24, 96001 Zvolen, Slovakia
- 11Faculty of Forestry, Department of Forest Management and Geodesy, Technical University in Zvolen, Zvolen, 960 53, Slovakia
- 12Slovenian Forestry Institute, Department of Forest Growth and Cultivation, Ljubljana, Slovenia
- 13University of Primorska, Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies, Koper, Slovenia
- 14Professorship for Land Surface-Atmosphere Interactions, Technical University of Munich, Germany
Competition is a key ecological process for forest stands, as it directly regulates resource availability and thereby tree growth and mortality, ultimately shaping stand structure and composition.
In this study, we field-collected competition measurements and dendrochronological analyses to examine how individual tree characteristics (age and size) and competitive status (Hegyi index) interact to modulate growth, drought-resilience components (resilience, recovery and resistance), and climate sensitivity (quantified via climate–growth correlations) of Norway spruce (Picea abies), silver fir (Abies alba) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), sampled at 11, 8 and 6 sites, respectively, across Central and Eastern Europe.
Building on ecological theory, we expect competition to have a stronger effect on tree radial growth during non-disturbance periods and to lose importance when disturbance events occur. Specifically, we expect drought resistance and recovery to vary nonlinearly with competitive pressure: at low competition, reduced demand and a more favourable microclimate may buffer drought impacts, whereas at intermediate–high competition, resource limitation should dominate and reduce performance. We further hypothesize that canopy-dominant trees recover faster after drought due to better access to resources.
Preliminary results show that competitive status strongly affects radial tree growth rates while climate sensitivity and resilience appear to be driven primarily by local site conditions and species-specific traits and only secondly by competitive status. Trees under higher competitive pressure generally exhibited higher resistance and longer recovery periods and showed weaker sensitivity to climatic conditions translating into generally lower resilience; however, responses vary widely among the three species.
Our study provides new insights into how competition, individual tree characteristics, and climate interact to shape growth rates, climate sensitivity, and drought tolerance. Our findings clarify how competition and stand density shape growth and drought responses across climates. This can guide climate-specific density targets (e.g., thinning intensity) to reduce drought impacts and improve resilience, and can support evidence-based forest policy and adaptive management.
How to cite: Partemi, R., Castagneri, D., Popa, A., Popa, I., Klisz, M., Jeleń, J., Koszelak, A., Svoboda, M., Bošeľa, M., Poltak, D., Levanič, T., Dieni, R., Buras, A., and Jevšenak, J.: The effect of competition on radial growth, drought resilience and climate sensitivity of three conifer species across Central and Eastern Europe, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-6590, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-6590, 2026.
