IT02-T Foreste delle Alpi

The LTER site IT02-000-T – Forests of the Alps includes four permanent monitoring plots belonging to CONECOFOR Programme (National Programme for Intensive Monitoring of Forest Ecosystems), located on the Italian Alps, covered by primary or secondary Picea abies dominated forests, ranging from 800 to 1800 m a.s.l. and one research station inside the Paneveggio-Pale di S. Martino Provincial Park mainly formed by pure Norway spruce stands. In the upper part of this forest Norway spruce is mixed with Swiss stone pine and larch. The CONECOFOR Program is included in the European ICP Forest Forests Monitoring Network, established under the 1979 Convention on Long Distance Transboundary Pollution (CLRTAP). The Val Masino, Passo Lavazè and Tarvisio stations are permanent areas of the National Network CONECOFOR since 1995; Renon is a permanent area of the Network of the Province of Bolzano since 1995, incorporated into the CONECOFOR National Network since 2000. Each area is independently managed by the Bodies listed in the descriptions of the sites. The permanent CONECOFOR sites, following the ICP Forest protocol, consist of a fenced square of 50m on each side. Inside, samplers for the collection of atmospheric pollutant depositions, automatic meteorological stations, samplers for collecting circulating solutions in soils can be found. Furthermore, foliar nutrient analysis, tree growth assessment, crown evaluation and vegetation diversity are carried out. All the researches have rather long historical series that have allowed to develop studies and researches having as object of investigation the status of forestry biodiversity, the climatic changes and the greater threats that the forest environment is forced to face. Unfortunately, forest monitoring has a rather high cost which, in the years of crisis, has not been able to cope with national funds alone. For this reason, it was necessary to make a selection within the monitoring areas which led, at present, to some of them in conditions of "suspension of research", in which only certain basic activities and maintenance of the areas. The Paneveggio forest has been home to forest ecology research for a very long time. The Valbona reserve is one of 6 Italian sites included in 2004 in the European Network for long-term Forest Ecosystem and Landscape Research. For this site are available: climatic data (continuous survey), woody biomass (periodic sampling), silvicultural activity (in the Reserve), impact of wild ungulates on forest renewal (225 permanent sampling points in the Paneveggio-Pale di S. Natural Park Martino), fauna censuses (ungulates and tetraonids). Furthermore, periodic inventories (10 years) of increase, birth rate, mortality, structural changes in 7 permanent areas of 1 ha are carried out with maps and incremental cores of the single trees (over 3000).