In order to adopt strategies for forest conservation and development, it is necessary to estimate the amount and distribution of genetic diversity in existing populations of poplar in Iran. In this study, the genetic diversity between eight stands of Populus nigra established in Kermanshah province was evaluated on the basis of molecular and morphological markers. To amplify microsatellite loci (WPMS09, WPMS16 and WPMS18), DNA extraction from young and fresh leaveswas done. Various conditions of the PCR assay were examined and to evaluate the morphological variation of the morphological characters leaves (consist of 19 traits) were measured. In addition, height growth was measured, to evaluate the growth function of the stands in homogeneous conditions. Genetic diversity in term of polymorphic loci was 0%, because three investigated microsatellite loci were monomorphic. The total number of alleles for 3 microsatellite loci was 6 (na = 2, ne = 2, heo = 1, hee = 0.51). Genetic identity based on Nei was 100%, so genetic distance was 0%. The whole sampled trees represented the same thus the genotype. No significant differences between the mean values of all morphological characters and height growth were revealed. Observed genetic similarity gave indication that same ramets had been selected to plant in poplar plantation established in Kermanshah province. These results suggest the need for an initial evaluation of the genetic diversity in selected ramets for planting in plantation to avoid repetition.  

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Quercus semecarpifolia J.E. Smith leaves were collected for evaluation of chemical composition between four seasons i.e before growing season, after growing season, on growing season, on late maturity, respectively, in 2008-2009 from five geological isolated sites ranging from 2450 to 2725 m a.s.l. Seasonal variability (p < 0.01) was found in the chemical composition of the Q. semecarpifoliafoliage. Dry matter and Ash Content significantly decreased in July (after growing season) as compared to the other months. Crude protein (CP) and phosphorus (P) contents significantly increased before growing season (January) and after growing season (July), finally declined in late maturation in October. Calcium contents and soluble protein (SP) significantly decreased before growing season (January) to late maturity (October), Ether extract (EE) decreased before growing season (January), after growing season (July) but increased in late maturity (October). Ash contents, CP, EE, P and SP exhibited significant variation among populations. CP was significantly higher in middle to higher altitudinal populations. P significantly decreased with increasing altitude. The rest of the studied mineral contents did not show any trend in the present study. The nutritive value of the leaves of Q. semecarpifolia was continually changing, especially CP and soluble protein. Q. semecarpifolia harvested at the proper stage of maturity (winter months) offers considerable potential as high quality forage for livestock to fulfill the deficiency of protein.

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Open cast mining for bauxite at Yercaud hills (India) resulted in degradation of forest ecosystem and production of large quantities of waste rocks (called mine spoils). To ameliorate mine spoils, topsoil is used to spread over before the planting of tree species, conventional method as the topsoil has a good structure, water holding capacity and beneficial microbes like Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) fungi essential for plant growth. However, the use of top soil is expensive and in this study bauxite mine spoils were reforestated with AM fungi instead of it. The beneficial microbes AM fungi (Glomus aggregatum Schenck & Smith, G. fasciculatum (Thatcher) Gerd. & Trappe emend. Walker & Koske, G. geosporum (Nicol. & Gerd.) Walker) were isolated, cultured and inoculated into the seedlings ofEucalyptus tereticornis Sm. and grown in bauxite mine spoils as potting medium under nursery conditions. Then, the biomass improved seedlings of E. tereticornis with inoculation of AM fungi were directly transplanted at bauxite mine spoils. After transplantation of the seedlings at bauxite mine spoils, the growth and survival rate were monitored for two years. The AM fungi inoculated seedlings ofE. tereticornis showed 95% survival over the control seedlings and their growth was also significantly higher. Tissue nutrients (N, P, K) were also found higher in AM fungi inoculated E. tereticornis than un inoculated control seedlings. 

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Estimating soils organic carbon stock and its change in time is an actual concern for scientists and climate change policy makers. The present article firstly focus on determination of C stocks in Romania on forest soil types, as well as development of the spatial distribution mapping using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and also the secondly on the quantification of uncertainty associated with currently available data on C concentration on forest soils geometrical layers. Determination of C stock was done based on forest management plans database created over 2000-2006. Unlike original database, the data for this study was harmonized on following depths: 0-10 cm, 10-20 cm, 20-40 cm, and > 40 cm. Then, the obtained values were grouped by soil types, resulting average values for the main forest soils from Romania. A soil area weighted average value of 137 t/ha is calculated for Romania, in the range of estimations for other European geographic and climatic areas. The soils that have the largest amount of organic carbon are andosols, vertisols, entic and haplic podzols, whereas the ones that have the smallest values of organic carbon are solonetz and solonchaks. Although current assessment relies on very large number of samples from the forest management planning database, the variability of C concentration remains very large, ~40-50% for coefficient the variation and ~100% of the average, when defining the range of 95% of entire soil population, rather showing the variability than uncertainty of the average estimated. Best fit for C concentration on geometric layers in any forest soil is asymmetric, associated with log-normal distributions.

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Long term carbon sequestration in soil had been advocated in almost all the international forum to minimize the global warming. However, the extent of carbon storage in soil will depend on the type of vegetation it supports. The study examined different land use potentiality in sequestering carbon in soil on the basis of extent of tree component. In addition it was also investigated that how soil carbon is related with other physical and chemical parameters of the soil in different land uses. Farmers will adopt a particular land use system only if it fits in his socio-economic frame work. Hence, bioeconomics of different land uses were also calculated and compared. Extent of tree in the land use affected the physical and chemical properties of soil. The pH of the soil decreased from 6.09 to 5.09 and bulk density from 1.55 to 1.21 g/cm3 as the tree component increased. Available soil nitrogen increased from 97 to 143 kg/ha and organic carbon from 0.39 to 1.77 per cent. Out of the four soil depths surface soil had less pH, bulk density and moisture, however soil nitrogen and organic carbon was higher. Physical characters of the soil were found to be more related with organic carbon in land uses which are devoid of trees or when their number was less. However, as the tree component increases both physical and chemical component needs to be taken simultaneously to get better estimate of carbon. Agroforestry systems (agrihorticulture) seems to be better land use practices as they fulfill the needs of the farmers and can also earn carbon-credits thus increasing their income by 21 per cent. 

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The paper analyse the substitution of hornbeam coppice stands and conversion into high forest stands, formed by species that better valorise the site conditions. An improved alternative for the method of substitution in corridors is presented. The main goal of this new substitution-conversion alternative is to gradually conduct the actual structure of the coppice stands towards the target structure imposed by the forest management objectives, without a total elimination of the species that will be substituted. Two plot areas were selected in order to put into practice the proposed method. Bands were created for reducing the effective costs of the substitution process. 450 respectively 468, small seedlings (of beech, pedunculate oak and sessile oak) per hectare were planted in the created bands. The planting scheme took into account the shadow tolerance of the species from the target composition. Based on the field data and using the yield tables, the evolution of the stands in the two selected plots was simulated. In this respect, the forest treatments were parameterized according to the Romanian forest rules regarding the application of thinning and regeneration cuttings. The substitution-conversion process started from an almost pure hornbeam coppice and, simulating the application of the proposed method for 120 years, it was predicted that the method allows directing the actual stand structure to the target structure. The dynamics of species and structural diversity were assessed and the results of 120 years simulation indicate an important increase of both the species (the Shannon species index increases from 0.203 to 1.073) and structural diversity (the Gini structural index increases from 0.032 to 0.200). 

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Forest road networks provide access to the forest as a source of timber production and tourism services. Moreover, it is considered the main tool to protect forests from fire and smuggling. The prerequisite of road management and maintenance planning is to have spatial distribution and map of the roads. But newly constructed or some other forest road segments are not available in national maps. Therefore, mapping these networks is raised as a priority for a forest manager. The aim of this study was to assess accuracy of routine methods in road mapping. For this purpose, Patom district forest road was selected and road network map was extracted from the National Cartographic Center maps as the ground truth or base map. The map of the network was acquired using two methods, a GPS receiver and survey technique. Selecting 70 sample points on the network and considering the National Cartographic Center map as base map, accuracy was determined for two methods. The results showed that while the survey method was more accurate at the beginning of the path (first 500 meters), accumulation of errors resulted in higher rates of error in this method (up to 263 meters) compared to GPS. Mann-Whitney test revealed significant differences in accuracy of two methods and mean accuracies were 38.86 and 147.90 for GPS and surveying respectively. The results showed that for samples 1-15 there was no significant difference between the survey and GPS data but for samples 28-42 and 56-70 statistically significant difference were existed between the survey and GPS data. Regression analysis showed that the relation between GPS and surveying accuracies and distance were best defined by cubic (R2 adj = 0.65) and linear (R2 adj = 0.83) regression models respectively. Applying 10 and 5 meters buffers around base map, 68 and 41% of GPS and 44 and 21% of surveying derived road were overlapped with buffer zones. The time required to complete the survey was found to increase the overall cost of mapping road network. The lower time requirements associated with the GPS methods were found to reduce the costs associated with mapping forest roads. 

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