Tellerman experimental forestry of the Institute of Forest Science, Russian Academy of Sciences: 80-year polygon of stationary biocenotic studies

Abstract

The Tellerman experimental forestry of the Institute of Forest Science, Russian Academy of Sciences, located in the southeast of Voronezh Oblast, has a long history. It was established on the initiative of Academician V. N. Sukachev in 1944 as a place to conduct complex long-term studies in broad-leaved forests on the border between forest-steppe and steppe. For almost 80 years specialists of different profiles worked in the territory of the forest area: foresters, geobotanists, soil scientists, zoologists, microbiologists, entomologists, phytopathologists. Extensive studies was carried out on the hydrology of the massif and water regime of stands, the environment-forming role of the forest, phytomass reserves were determined, productivity of stands in different forest types was determined, and a cycle of silvicultural experiments was established. The comprehensive study of biogeocenoses also included root systems, phenological, geobotanical, zoological, entomological, microbiological and mycological studies. The scientific basis for the establishment of pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) crops in the forest-steppe was developed, taking into account its form diversity and the results of silvicultural experiments laid down in the first decades of the forest region’s existence. The study of silvicultural aspects of oak stands degradation allowed us to develop practical methods of reproduction of oak forests on clear cuts of stands mixed with oak by sowing acorns with a shortened period of thinning.

Keywords

• forest-steppe
• oak forests
• long-term studies
• restoration of oak forests
• voronezh oblast