Experimental investigation of the effects of forest management on forest site, biodiversity and regeneration

Description of the research topic

In the framework of Pilis Forestry Systems and Pilis Gap Experiments the effect of forest management is studied on forest site, regeneration and biodiversity in a mature sessile oak-hornbeam forest (https://piliskiserlet.ecolres.hu/en ). The Pilis Forestry Systems Experiment compares the treatments of rotation and continuous cover forestry (clear-cutting, gap-cutting, retention tree group, preparation cutting, mature control) in block design with six replicates from 2014. In the treatments the microclimate (light, air humidity, air temperature, soil temperature), soil and litter conditions, the regeneration and the community of different organism groups (understory, beetles, spiders, soil organisms) are studied as response variables. The effect of browsing is investigated by fenced and unfenced plots. In the Pilis Gap Experiment the effect of gap size (150 versus 300 m2) and gap shape (circular versus elongated) is studied using six treatments and six replicates as blocks from 2018. Similarly to the earlier experiment, the response variables are forest site, regeneration and biodiveristy. In this experiment the regeneration of sessile oak and growth response of the trees are also studied. Within these experiments a PhD study could connect to different subtopics (organism groups, forest site, and regeneration). The supervision of the PhD topic is directly connected to the Forest Ecological Research Group in Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany.

Thesis supervisor: Péter Ódon

Required language skills: English

How to Apply?

If you are interested apply here: [PhD] Doctoral School of Biology – Eötvös Loránd University (elte.hu)

For more information visite the following website: Doctoral School of Biology (elte.hu)

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