Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Impact of Crown Closure on Cone Production and Effective Number of Parents in Natural Stands of Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.)

Version 1 : Received: 30 March 2023 / Approved: 3 April 2023 / Online: 3 April 2023 (14:02:32 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Yazici, N.; Bilir, N. Impact of Crown Closure on Cone Production and Effective Number of Parents in Natural Stands of Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.). Forests 2023, 14, 1130. Yazici, N.; Bilir, N. Impact of Crown Closure on Cone Production and Effective Number of Parents in Natural Stands of Taurus Cedar (Cedrus libani A. Rich.). Forests 2023, 14, 1130.

Abstract

The effect of biotic (e.g., growth characteristics) and a-biotic (e.g., crown closure) factors on cone production, fertility variation and gene diversity was evaluated in two consecutive years in 130 year old natural populations of Taurus cedar also called cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani A. Rich.). The a-biotic factors viz., altitude, temperature, aspect and rainfall varied; while some of them can be managed by cultural operations like management of crown and stand density. Impact of crown closure on cone production, fertility variation and related parameters were observed in Taurus cedar’s natural populations sampled from southern Turkey. Maximum cone production of 29 and 40/tree was recorded with full crown closure in two consecutive years by large differences among individuals within crown closure class. For instance, cone productions were between 10 and 67 in full crown closure of first year. The sibling coefficient, which is a measure of the fertility variation in a stand, was the highest (1.16) for full crown closure in the first (meaning 86% fertile trees) and the second year (1.55, 65%), while it was the lowest for medium crown closure (1.09, 92%) in both years. Gene diversity decreased from a degraded patch (0.987) to that with full crown closure (0.984). Results of variance analysis showed significant (p≤0.05) difference between crown closure classes for cone production within second year, and between years. Significant positive (p0.05) correlations were noted between years for cone production (r=0.22), and between cone production and crown closure in first and second years (r=0.29). However, growth characteristics had no effective on cone productions in individual crown closure classes, while there were significant (p0.05) correlations between diameter at breast height and cone production for both years (r= 0.15 and 0.17) in pooled populations.

Keywords

crown cover; effective size; reproduction; seed; status number; variation

Subject

Arts and Humanities, History

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