During the last meeting in Karlsruhe the authors presented a paper [1] providing background information about the determination of the characteristic bending strength of beech glulam. A design proposal was derived to calculate the characteristic bending strength depending on the characteristic tensile strength of the lamellae and the characteristic finger joint bending strength. It was experime...

Global change—particularly climate change, forest management, and atmospheric deposition—has significantly altered forest growing conditions in Europe. The influences of these changes on beech growth (Fagus sylvatica L.) were investigated for the past 80 years in Belgium, using non-linear mixed effects models on ring-width chronologies of 149 mature and dominant beech trees (87–186 years old). ...

Northern hardwoods have undergone a marked change in their dynamics, with American beech (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) increasing in abundance relative to sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.). This study aims to better understand this sudden shift in recruitment dynamics. We performed an extensive analysis of the age structure, radial growth pattern, and release history on >700 saplings from 34 matu...

Following a full mast production in autumn 1995 in the old growth beech forest of la Tillaie, France, cupules, live and dead yearling seedlings were counted in September 1996 in 40 plots, embracing a wide range of ecological conditions. The influence of geomorphology and forest stage on mast production and on seedling establishment and survival was studied. Maximum seedling abundance did not oc...

Norway spruce (Picea abies) forests exhibit lower annual atmospheric methane consumption rates than do European beech (Fagus sylvatica) forests. In the current study, pmoA (encoding a subunit of membrane-bound CH(4) monooxygenase) genes from three temperate forest ecosystems with both beech and spruce stands were analyzed to assess the potential effect of tree species on methanotrophic communit...

A significant loss of biodiversity resulting from human activity has caused biotic homogenisation to become the dominant process shaping forest communities. In this paper, we present a rare case of biotic differentiation in European temperate deciduous forest herb layer vegetation. The process is occurring in nutrient poor oak-hornbeam forests in mountain areas (Polish Eastern Carpathians, Cent...

Resource sustainability requires a thorough understanding of the influence of forest management programs on the conservation of genetic diversity in tree populations. To observe how differences in forest management affect the genetic structure of Fagus orientalis Lipsky (oriental beech), we evaluated thirteen beech sites across Hyrcanian forests, based on six microsatellite loci. Significant di...

Farm management practices that reduce the prevalence of food-borne pathogens in live animals are predicted to enhance food safety. To ascertain the potential role of livestock bedding in the ecology and epidemiology of Escherichia coli O157:H7 on farms, the survival of this pathogen in used-sand and used-sawdust dairy cow bedding was determined. Additionally, a longitudinal study of mature dair...

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of straw, sawdust, coconut husk (husk), and coconut fiber (fiber) on the welfare of stable horses by observing their resting behavior. Twenty horses with ages ranging from 3 to 21 years were used at the Equine Research Institute of the Japan Racing Association, Utsunomiya, Japan. Five horses were allocated to each bedding condition. The ...

Rice husk and sawdust were selected as the raw materials for a study of biomass char yield in the range of 600 to 900 °C. It was found that temperature was the primary factor affecting the biomass char yield. The yield of the rice husk and sawdust chars decreased significantly with increasing temperature. As the residence time increased, the biomass char yield decreased. The smaller the size of...