Pre-growth
mortality of Abies cilicica
trees and mortality models performance
Serdar Carus*
Department
of Forest Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of S?leyman Demirel, 32260 Cunur, Isparta, Turkey
(Received: August 29, 2008; Revised
received: March
27, 2009; Accepted: April 04, 2009)
Abstract: In this study, we
compared tree-growth rates (basal area increment) from recently dead and living
Taurus fir (Abies cilicica
Carr.) trees in the Kovada lake Forest of Isparta,
Turkey.
For each dead tree, tree-growth rates were analyzed for the presence of
pre-death growth depressions in the study area (number of sample plots=11) in
2006. However, we compared both the magnitude and rate of growth prior to death
to a control (living) group of trees. Basal area increment (BAI) averaged
substantially less during the last 10 years before death than for control
trees. Trees that died started diverging in growth, on average, 50-60 years
before death. About 18% of trees that died had chronically slow growth, 46% had
pronounced declines in growth, whereas 36% had good growth up to death.
However, tree-ring-based growth patterns of dead and living Taurus fir trees
were compared and used 12 mortality models that were derived using logistic
regression from growth patterns of tree-ring series as predictor variables. The
four models with the highest overall performance correctly classified
43.8-56.3% of all dead trees and 75.0-87.5% of all living trees, and they
predicted 25.0-43.8% of all dead trees to die within 0-15 years prior to the
actual year of death.
Key
words: Abies
cilicica, Growth pattern, Mortality prediction, Tree
mortality
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