Succession écologique des forêts d'épinette blanche et fluctuations climatiques, Poste-de-la-Baleine, Nouveau-Québec

The stand structures of three white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) climax forests of the hemiarctic zone in New Quebec are described. The forests have a similar structural pattern, characterized by important and irregular variations in the number of individuals per age, diameter, and height cla...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Canadian Journal of Botany
Main Author: Payette, Serge
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1976
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/b76-152
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/b76-152
Description
Summary:The stand structures of three white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) climax forests of the hemiarctic zone in New Quebec are described. The forests have a similar structural pattern, characterized by important and irregular variations in the number of individuals per age, diameter, and height classes. These variations are synchronic and suggest that the climate strongly influences the forest regeneration. The discontinuous trend in the curves may possibly be related to changes in seed production and seedling establishment. Synchronism between the 300-year dendrochronological curve and the stand age-structure is apparent. The hollow parts of the age curves are related to unfavorable climatic periods and the peaks to favorable ones. These climatic fluctuations are probably responsible for either a decrease or an increase in white spruce seed production important to hemiarctic forest regeneration. Finally, the writer suggests a theoretical age-structure curve for climax forests in the maritime forest-tundra near Poste-de-la-Baleine, New Quebec.