Scientific heritage of Alexey Ivanovich Buzykin (to 80 years of birthday)

Abstract

The paper analyzes the scientific achievements and heritage of Alexey Ivanovich Buzykin, a well-known Siberian forest researcher, the Honored Forester of the Russian Federation, who contributed remarkably to improve the knowledge of the forests of Siberia. He was the first to explore the possibility to increase Siberian forest productivity by its scientifically justified regulation. He accurately estimated forest productivity responses to increasing soil nitrogen using a large amount of data, studied structural, species composition, and density changes that occur in young mixed stands after tending felling, revealed stand productivity dependence on stand density, and showed how structure and dynamics of forest generations are manifested through vegetation succession. Along with studies of natural ecosystems, Alexey I. Buzykin did large-scale experiments on managing forest ecosystems by different types of sanitary cutting, application of fertilizers to soil, regulation of cold soil thermal regime, and by establishment of Scots pine, spruce and larch plantations covering a range of stand densities. To achieve his forest management objectives, he developed original forest research methods, among them methodologies to assess seedling and sapling amounts, to estimate forest response to fertilizer application, and to classify young forest stands by formation type. He also developed tables of small-sized young tree trunk volumes. During his last years, Alexey I. Buzykin, in collaboration with other researchers, accomplished a series of theoretical studies. He suggested that mathematical tools should be used for interpreting different kinds of events and changes occurring in forest ecosystems including the use of phenomenological models of stand establishment processes, stand growth models, forest succession models, and other models. The results of Alexey I. Buzykin’s research studies are still very important regarding large-scale forestry activities. They have been used for many years to improve forest management practices in Siberia and have been considered in the forest use normative documents of the federal level. A list of Alexey I. Buzykin’s major research works concludes the paper.

Keywords

• Alexey Ivanovich Buzykin
• forests of Siberia
• productivity
• density
• forest felling
• mineral nutrients
• forest dynamics