Mature oak stands of different tree height at four sandy valley river sites (Quercus robur) and one south-exposed schist slope (Qu. petraea) in the middle Rhine and lower Main valley were studied from early summer 2017 (normal wet year) until the end of 2018 (extremely hot and dry year). Tree water ...

Nursery cultivation practices can be modified to increase resistance to water stress in forest seedlings following field establishment, which may be increasingly important under climate change. We evaluated the morphological (survival, growth) and physiological (chlorophyll fluorescence, leaf water ...

The determinations carried out between July and September 2021 in the Comanesti Hills aimed to establish the effect of the prolonged drought in this area on the physiological processes in the young trees of the species Quercus cerris, Q. Robur and Q. freinetto. The results obtained showed that all...

A user-friendly and affordable broad-band digital Near Infrared (NIR) camera (Canon PowerShot S110 NIR) was compared with a narrow-band reflectance spectrometer (USB2000, Ocean Optics) at leaf scale for monitoring changes in response to drought of three ecologically contrasting Quercus species (Q....

Most existing forests are subjected to natural and human-mediated selection pressures, which have increased due to climate change and the increasing needs of human societies for wood, fibre and fuel resources. It remains largely unknown how these pressures trigger evolutionary changes. We address...

In light of climate change, pedunculate oak (Q. robur L.) was marked as the most threatened European tree species. Pedunculate oak is particularly jeopardized by powdery mildew disease caused by Erysiphe alphitoides. We hypothesized that priming of this tree species with ectomycorrhizal fungi could ...

Vegetation, as a fundamental element of urban green infrastructure, plays a vital role in mitigating urban flooding. Green infrastructure performance in mitigating floods depends on plant responses to meteorological forcing. This puts urban green infrastructure in risk under a changing climate. In...

The long-term increases in average temperature and intensification of droughts which characterise the current state of the Earth's climate system have a negative impact on forest ecosystems and can lead to a decrease in their area and deterioration of the living conditions of their components. In...

Precipitation that is intercepted by vegetation is generally considered as lost to the terrestrial hydrological cycle. However, if it is absorbed by the plants or reduces their transpiration, the intercepted water contributes positively to forest hydrology. The aim of this study was to investigate...

Drought events may increase the likelihood that the plant water transport system becomes interrupted by embolism. Yet our knowledge about the temporal frequency of xylem embolism in the field is frequently lacking, as it requires detailed, long-term measurements.We measured xylem embolism...