Silvogenetic typology of Spanish firwood Abies alba Mill. forests

Abstract

This paper presents a silvogenetic typology of firwood stand communities in the spanish Pyrenees. It has been elaborated based on the information supplied by the Second National Forest Inventory. Basal area, stand density, ageclass distribution and pure or mixed character of the stand were used to identify nine different firwood stand types. It has been comparatively analyzed in the nine obtained types the structure of the age-class distributions as well as the role of accompanying species perform in that structure, emphasizing how the character of uneven-aged stand presides in various degrees most of the identified categories. This classification is easy to apply in forest management practices since it only uses as input the inventoried tree diameters. It also encompasses the different sequential and evolutionary stadiums of the spanish firwood stands, from the installation phase of the seedlings under other species plant cover, until the mature and old-aged structure stage.