WP 3 aims to determine how key ecosystem services – provision of timber and biomass, maintenance of nutrient cycling, maintenance of hydrological cycles and provision of clean water – depend on the tree diversity of European forests.
To achieve this goal, WP 3 will:
• develop predictive models of timber and biomass production, including timber quality, aboveground and belowground biomass productivity, leaf area index and photosynthetic parameters;
• determine variability in stem wood production in relation to climate change;
• quantify nutrient stocks and cycling, including litter production and element fluxes, nitrogen resorption efficiency, decomposition and mineralization ;
• assessing hydrological functions and water quality, focusing on water use efficiency, drought stress, and water and element fluxes over various spatial and temporal scales;
in forests of differing taxonomic and functional diversity.
July 2012: Sampling fresh leaves for quantifying nitrogen resoprtion efficiency, asssing water use efficiency.
