Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL

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Forest-site science: Soil and site information for Swiss Forests

Spatially-explicit knowledge of soil properties and functions is a prerequisite to sustainably manage forests to fulfil their ecosystem services under the increasing pressure by climatic changes.

Soil and site information

We therefore provide soil and other site information for the Swiss forest as basis to achieve various research objectives, using the following tools:

Soil data base, containing soil profile data (morphological, physical and chemical properties), vegetation records and site data on geology and climate for about 1200 forest stands across Switzerland (graph: WSL)
Bodenproben-Archiv (Pedothek) an der WSL und Datenbankschema. (Foto: Marco Walser)
Soil archive (“pedothek”): contains samples from about 1850 soil profiles, plus ca. 12’000 topsoil samples from the 1 x 1 km grid of the National Forest Inventory (Foto: WSL)
Punktdendrometer zur Erfassung von Baumradiusveränderungen (unten) und Sensor zur Messung von Lufttemperatur und -feuchtigkeit (oben). (Foto: Lorenz Walthert)
Long-term data series of environmental conditions (e.g. temperature, soil water potential) and stem radius increment for common tree species, available for a sub-set of sites. (Foto: WSL)

Objective 1: Constraining ecological niches of plant species

This research focuses on the question how plant species respond to major growth factors in forests such as temperature, moisture and nutrient availability. Considering the long life-span of trees and their strong interactions with the soil, constraining the ecological niches and response to environmental factors of tree species is important for forest management in a climatically changing world (project: «Soil as a site factor»)

Objective 2: Assessing change of Swiss forest soils

We take inventories of soils on 172 sites located on the 8 x 8 km sub-grid of the National Forest Inventory. In the framework of ICP Forests, we sampled and analysed soil profiles on these sites a first time in 1993, and are currently (2021-2025) performing a second sampling campaign. These are the first steps of a long-term monitoring program that shall allow to assess widely occurring changes in soil properties and functions (project «Forest Soil Inventory»).

Objective 3: Digital soil maps as management tools

Here we aim at producing high-resolution maps of soil properties (current status) and soil functions (future development) as spatially explicit tools for forestry-related policy and decision-makers (collaboration with GIS group WSL, project «High-resolution soil maps for the Swiss forest»).

Publications

Etzold S., Sterck F., Bose A.K., Braun S., Buchmann N., Eugster W., … Zweifel R. (2022) Number of growth days and not length of the growth period determines radial stem growth of temperate trees. Ecol. Lett. 25(2), 427-439. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13933 Institutional Repository DORA

Meusburger K., Trotsiuk V., Schmidt-Walter P., Baltensweiler A., Brun P., Bernhard F., … Walthert L. (2022) Soil–plant interactions modulated water availability of Swiss forests during the 2015 and 2018 droughts. Glob. Chang. Biol. 28(20), 5928-5944. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16332 Institutional Repository DORA

Salomón R.L., Peters R.L., Zweifel R., Sass-Klaassen U.G.W., Stegehuis A.I., Smiljanic M., … Steppe K. (2022) The 2018 European heatwave led to stem dehydration but not to consistent growth reductions in forests. Nat. Commun. 13(1), 28 (11 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27579-9Institutional Repository DORA

Walthert L. (2022) Waldboden und Baumartenwahl. Info BWSo. (1), 8-9. Institutional Repository DORA

Baltensweiler A., Walthert L., Hanewinkel M., Zimmermann S., Nussbaum M. (2021) Machine learning based soil maps for a wide range of soil properties for the forested area of Switzerland. Geoderma Reg. 27, e00437 (13 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geodrs.2021.e00437Institutional Repository DORA

Walser M., Köchli R., Walthert L., Zimmermann S., Brunner I. (2021) Den Waldboden verstehen - Vielfalt und Funktion der Waldböden in der Schweiz. Merkblatt für die Praxis: Vol. 68. Birmensdorf: Eidg. Forschungsanstalt WSL. 12 p. Institutional Repository DORA

Walthert L., Ganthaler A., Mayr S., Saurer M., Waldner P., Walser M., … von Arx G. (2021) From the comfort zone to crown dieback: sequence of physiological stress thresholds in mature European beech trees across progressive drought. Sci. Total Environ. 753, 141792 (14 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141792Institutional Repository DORA

Descombes P., Walthert L., Baltensweiler A., Meuli R.G., Karger D.N., Ginzler C., … Zimmermann N.E. (2020) Spatial modelling of ecological indicator values improves predictions of plant distributions in complex landscapes. Ecography. 43(10), 1448-1463. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05117 Institutional Repository DORA

Solly E.F., Weber V., Zimmermann S., Walthert L., Hagedorn F., Schmidt M.W.I. (2020) A critical evaluation of the relationship between the effective cation exchange capacity and soil organic carbon content in Swiss forest soils. Front. For. Glob. Change. 3, 98 (12 pp.). https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2020.00098Institutional Repository DORA

Greiner L., Nussbaum M., Papritz A., Fraefel M., Zimmermann S., Schwab P., … Keller A. (2018) Assessment of soil multi-functionality to support the sustainable use of soil resources on the Swiss Plateau. Geoderma Reg. 14, e00181 (16 pp.). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geodrs.2018.e00181Institutional Repository DORA

Greiner L., Nussbaum M., Papritz A., Zimmermann S., Gubler A., Grêt-Regamey A., Keller A. (2018) Uncertainty indication in soil function maps – transparent and easy-to-use information to support sustainable use of soil resources. Soil. 4(2), 123-139. https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-4-123-2018 Institutional Repository DORA

Nussbaum M., Walthert L., Fraefel M., Greiner L., Papritz A. (2017) Mapping of soil properties at high resolution in Switzerland using boosted geoadditive models. Soil. 3, 191-210. https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-3-191-2017 Institutional Repository DORA

Walthert L., Meier E.S. (2017) Tree species distribution in temperate forests is more influenced by soil than by climate. Ecol. Evol. 7, 9473-9484. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3436 Institutional Repository DORA

Lévesque M., Walthert L., Weber P. (2016) Soil nutrients influence growth response of temperate tree species to drought. J. Ecol. 104(2), 377-387. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.12519 Institutional Repository DORA

Scherler M., Remund J., Walthert L. (2016) Wasserhaushalt von Wäldern bei zunehmender Trockenheit. In A. R. Pluess, S. Augustin, & P. Brang (Eds.), Wald im Klimawandel. Grundlagen für Adaptationsstrategien. Bern: Haupt. 39-58. Institutional Repository DORA

Zimmermann S., Luster J., Blaser P., Walthert L., Lüscher P. (2006) Waldböden der Schweiz. Band 3. Regionen Mittelland und Voralpen. Birmensdorf; Bern: Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt WSL; Hep Verlag. 847 p. Institutional Repository DORA

Blaser P., Zimmermann S., Luster J., Walthert L., Lüscher P. (2005) Waldböden der Schweiz. Band 2. Regionen Alpen und Alpensüdseite. Birmensdorf; Bern: Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt WSL; Hep Verlag. 920 p. Institutional Repository DORA

Walthert L., Zimmermann S., Blaser P., Luster J., Lüscher P. (2004) Waldböden der Schweiz. Band 1. Grundlagen und Region Jura. Birmensdorf; Bern: Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt WSL; Hep Verlag. 768 p. Institutional Repository DORA

Projects

Soil as a site factor in Swiss forests

This project delivers soil and site related information for Swiss forests which are based mainly on measured values: (i) response of tree species relating to direct and indirect environmental variables, (ii) quantitative characterisation of species' ecological niche and (iii) soil ecological indicator values for forest plant species.

Repetition of the forest soil inventory in Switzerland

The repetition of the forest soil inventory provides the basis for representative forest soil monitoring throughout Switzerland. Through the connection to the sampling network of the National Forest Inventory, a variety of possibilities for the use and evaluation of the collected soil data are possible.

Pre-Study to supplement the 8 x 8 km grid of the soil inventory 2021–2025

In the years 2021–2025, the forest soil survey of 1993 on the 8 x 8 km will be repeated. This grid does not cover all combinations of soil formation and environmental factors that potentially occur in Switzerland. This project evaluates the most efficient way to close these gaps.

Hochauflösende Bodenkarten für den Schweizer Wald

In this project we model high-resolution soil maps with different soil properties such as pH or texture for the entire Swiss forest.

TreeNet - The biological drought and growth indicator network - Phase 4

TreeNet ist ein internationales Beobachtungs- und Forschungsnetzwerk, in dem Punktdendrometer automatisch die täglichen Stammradiusschwankungen von Bäumen erfassen. Der kontinuierliche Fluss von Daten liefert Echtzeitinformationen über die Wasserverhältnisse im Baum und das radial Stammwachstum

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